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SARA CREWE 

LITTLE SAINT ELIZABETH 

AND OTHER STORIES 


Mrs. BURNETT’S FAMOUS JUVENILES 

PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


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SHE LAID HER DOLL, EMILY, ACROSS HER KNEES, AND PUT HER FACE 
DOWN UPON HER, AND HER ARMS AROUND HER, AND SAT THERE, 

NOT SAYING ONE WORD, NOT MAKING ONE SOUND.” 






































SARA CREWE 


LITTLE SAINT ELIZABETH 

Hnt> ©tber Stories 


BY 

FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 

»» 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1919 



Copyright, 1888, 1890, 1897, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


Copyright, 1916, 1918, by 
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 


[All rights reserved] 


■/ g'e 




>1 0 



a ct? 







CONTENTS 

Sara Crewe, . 

Little Saint Elizabeth, . 

The Story of Prince Fairyfoot, . 
The Proud Little Grain of Wheat, 
Beb**4 the White Brick, 


PAG* 

• • / 

• . 85 

• • 137 

. . 187 

• • 21 ! 







LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, 

FROM DRAWINGS BY REGINALD B. BIRCH 

“ She laid her doll, Emily, across her knees, and put her 
face down upon her, and her arms around her, 
and sat there, not saying one word, not making 
one sound,” . Frontispiece 

“ She slowly advanced into the parlor, clutching her 

doll” ......... 77 

“ Eat it,” said Sara, “ and you will not be so hungry,” . jq 

“ He was waiting for his Master to come out to the car - 
riage, and Sara stopped and spoke a few words to 
him,” . 47 

“ The monkey seemed much interested in her remarks,” . 61 

“ He drew her small, dark head down upon his knee and 

stroked her hair,” . Si 

“ There she is,” they would cry, . 8g 

It was Aunt Clotilde, who had sunk forward while 

kneeling at prayer, . Qf 




x List of Illustrations 

The villagers did not stand in awe of her, 


PAGE 


. . IOJ 

“ Uncle Bertrand," child, clasping her hands, . /op 


“Why is it that you cry?" she asked gently, . . . 125 

Her strength deserted her —xfo fell upon her knees in the 

snow, ./j/ 

“ Why" exclaimed Fairy foot, “ Fm surprised," . . 747 

“ What’s the matter with the swine? " he asked, . . /jp 


Almost immediately they found themselves in a beautiful 

little dell, . i6j 

Fairyfoot loved her in a moment, and he knelt on one 


knee, ......... 1S1 

* There’s the cake," he said, .. 207 


“Eh! Eh!" he said, “What! What! Who's this 
Tootsicums?" .. 




SARA CREWE 

OR 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCH 1 NS 


I 


SARA CREWE 

OR 

WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 


IN the first place, Miss Minchin lived in Lon¬ 
don. Her home was a large, dull, tall one, in a 
large, dull square, where all the houses were alike, 
and all the sparrows were alike, and where all the 
door-knockers made the same heavy sound, and 
on still days—and nearly all the days were still— 
seemed to resound through the entire row in 
which the knock was knocked. On Miss Min- 
chin’s door there was a brass plate. On the brass 
plate there was inscribed in black letters, 


MISS MINCHIN’S 

SELECT SEMINARY FOR YOUNG LADIES 


Little Sara Crewe never went in or out of the 
house without reading that door-plate and re¬ 
flecting upon it. By the time she was twelve, she 



4 Sara Crewe ; or, 

had decided that all her trouble arose because, in 
the first place, she was not “ Select,” and in the 
second, she was not a “ Young Lady.” When she 
was eight years old, she had been brought to Miss 
Minchin as a pupil, and left with her. Her papa 
had brought her all the way from India. Her 
mamma had died when she was a baby, and her 
papa had kept her with him as long as he could. 
And then, finding the hot climate was making her 
very delicate, he had brought her to England and 
left her with Miss Minchin, to be part of the Se¬ 
lect Seminary for Young Ladies. Sara, who had 
always been a sharp little child, who remembered 
things, recollected hearing him say that he had 
not a relative in the world whom he knew of, and 
so he was obliged to place her at a boarding- 
school, and he had heard Miss Minchin’s estab¬ 
lishment spoken of very highly. The same day, 
he took Sara out and bought her a great many 
beautiful clothes—clothes so grand and rich that 
only a very young and inexperienced man would 
have bought them for a mite of a child who was 
to be brought up in a boarding-school. But the 
fact was that he was a rash, innocent young man, 
and very sad at the thought of parting with his 
little girl, who was all he had left to remind him 
of her beautiful mother, whom he had dearly 
loved. And he wished her to have everything 
the most fortunate little girl could have; and so, 


What Happened at Miss Minchin s 5 

when the polite saleswomen in the shops said, 
“ Here is our very latest thing in hats, the plumes 
are exactly the same as those we sold to Lady 
Diana Sinclair yesterday,” he immediately bought 
what was offered to him, and paid whatever was 
asked. The consequence was that Sara had a 
most extraordinary wardrobe. Her dresses were 
silk and velvet and India cashmere, her hats and 
bonnets were covered with bows and plumes, her 
small undergarments were adorned with real lace, 
and she returned in the cab to Miss Minchin’s 
with a doll almost as large as herself, dressed 
quite as grandly as herself, too. 

Then her papa gave Miss Minchin some money 
and went away, and for several days Sara would 
neither touch the doll, nor her breakfast, nor her 
dinner, nor her tea, and would do nothing but 
crouch in a small corner by the window and cry. 
She cried so much, indeed, that she made herself 
ill. She was a queer little child, with old-fash¬ 
ioned ways and strong feelings, and she had 
adored her papa, and could not be made to think 
that India and an interesting bungalow were not 
better for her than London and Miss Minchin’s 
Select Seminary. The instant she had entered 
the house, she had begun promptly to hate Miss 
Minchin, and to think little of Miss Amelia Min¬ 
chin, who was smooth and dumpy, and lisped, and 
was evidently afraid of her older sister. Miss 


6 


Sara Crewe ; or 

Minchin was tall, and had large, cold, fishy eyes, 
and large, cold hands, which seemed fishy, too, 
because they were damp and made chills run 
down Sara’s back when they touched her, as 
Miss Minchin pushed her hair off her forehead 
and said: 

“A most beautiful and promising little girl, 
Captain Crewe. She will be a favorite pupil; 
quite a favorite pupil, I see.” 

For the first year she was a favorite pupil; at 
least she was indulged a great deal more than was 
good for her. And when the Select Seminary 
went walking, two by two, she was always decked 
out in her grandest clothes, and led by the hand, 
at the head of the genteel procession, by Miss 
Minchin herself. And when the parents of any 
of the pupils came, she was always dressed and 
called into the parlor with her doll; and she used 
to hear Miss Minchin say that her father was a 
distinguished Indian officer, and she would be 
heiress to a great fortune. That her father had 
inherited a great deal of money, Sara had heard 
before; and also that some day it would be 
hers, and that he would not remain long in the 
army, but would come to live in London. And 
every time a letter came, she hoped it would 
say he was coming, and they were to live to- 
gether again. 

But about the middle of the third year a letter 



M SHE SLOWLY ADVANCED INTO THE PARLOR, CLUTCHING HER DOLL.” 
































































What Happened at Miss Minchiris 7 

came bringing very different news. Because he 
was not a business man himself, her papa had 
given his affairs into the hands of a friend he 
trusted. The friend had deceived and robbed 
him. All the money was gone, no one knew ex¬ 
actly where, and the shock was so great to the 
poor, rash young officer, that, being attacked by 
jungle fever shortly afterward, he had no strength 
to rally, and so died, leaving Sara, with no one to 
take care of her. 

Miss Minchin's cold and fishy eyes had never 
looked so cold and fishy as they did when Sara 
went into the parlor, on being sent for, a few days 
after the letter was received. 

No one had said anything to the child about 
mourning, so, in her old-fashioned way, she had 
decided to find a black dress for herself, and had 
picked out a black velvet she had outgrown, and 
came into the room in it, looking the queerest lit¬ 
tle figure in the world, and a sad little figure too. 
The dress was too short and too tight, her face 
was white, her eyes had dark rings around them, 
and her doll, wrapped in a piece of old black 
crape, was held under her arm. She was not a 
pretty child. She was thin, and had a weird, in¬ 
teresting little face, short black hair, and very 
large, green-gray eyes fringed all around with 
heavy black lashes. 

<( I am the ugliest child in the school/' she had 


8 Sara Crewe; or 

said once, after staring at herself in the glass for 
some minutes. 

But there had been a clever, good-natured little 
French teacher who had said to the music-master: 

“ Zat leetle Crewe. Vat a child! A so ogly 
beauty! Ze so large eyes! ze so little spirituelle 
face. Waid till she grow up. You shall see ! ” 

This morning, however, in the tight, small 
black frock, she looked thinner and odder than 
ever, and her eyes were fixed on Miss Minchin 
with a queer steadiness as she slowly advanced 
into the parlor, clutching her doll. 

“ Put your doll down ! ” said Miss Minchin. 

“ No,” said the child, “ I won’t put her down; 
I want her with me. She is all I have. She has 
stayed with me all the time since my papa died.” 

She had never been an obedient child. She had 
had her own way ever since she was born, and 
there was about her an air of silent determination 
under which Miss Minchin had always felt secretly 
uncomfortable. And that lady felt even now that 
perhaps it would be as well not to insist on her 
point. So she looked at her as severely as pos¬ 
sible. 

“ You will have no time for dolls in future,” 
she said; “you will have to work and improve 
yourself, and make yourself useful.” 

Sara kept the big odd eyes fixed on her teacher 
and said nothing. 


What Happened at Miss Minchin s 9 

“ Everything will be very different now,” Miss 
Minchin went on. “ I sent for you to talk to 
you and make you understand. Your father 
is dead. You have no friends. You have no 
money. You have no home and no one to take 
care of you.” 

The little pale olive face twitched nervously, 
but the green-gray eyes did not move from Miss 
Minchin’s, and still Sara said nothing. 

“ What are you staring at?” demanded Miss 
Minchin sharply. “ Are you so stupid you don’t 
understand what I mean ? I tell you that you are 
quite alone in the world, and have no one to do 
anything for you, unless I choose to keep you 
here.” 

The truth was, Miss Minchin was in her worst 
mood. To be suddenly deprived of a large sum 
of money yearly and a show pupil, and to find 
herself with a little beggar on her hands, was 
more than she could bear with any degree of calm¬ 
ness. 

“ Now listen to me,” she went on, “ and re¬ 
member what I say. If you work hard and pre¬ 
pare to make yourself useful in a few years, I 
shall let you stay here. You are only a child, 
but you are a sharp child, and you pick up things 
almost without being taught. You speak French 
very well, and in a year or so you can begin 
to help with the younger pupils. By the time 


io Sara Crewe ; or , 

you are fifteen you ought to be able to do that 
much at least.” 

“I can speak French better than you, now,” 
said Sara; “ I always spoke it with my papa in 
India.” Which was not at all polite, but was 
painfully true; because Miss Minchin could not 
speak French at all, and, indeed, was not in the 
least a clever person. But she was a hard, grasp¬ 
ing business woman; and, after the first shock of 
disappointment, had seen that at very little ex¬ 
pense to herself she might prepare this clever, 
determined child to be very useful to her and 
save her the necessity of paying large salaries to 
teachers of languages. 

“ Don’t be impudent, or you will be punished,” 
she said. “You will have to improve your man- 
ners if you expect to earn your bread. You are 
not a parlor boarder now. Remember that if you 
don’t please me, and I send you away, you have 
no home but the street. You can go now.” 

Sara turned away. 

“ Stay,” commanded Miss Minchin, “ don’t you 
intend to thank me ? ” 

Sara turned toward her. The nervous twitch 
was to be seen again in her face, and she seemed 
to be trying to control it. 

“ What for ? ” she said. 

“ For my kindness to you,” replied Miss Min¬ 
chin. “ For my kindness in giving you a home/ 






What Happened at Miss Minchins 13 

Sara went two or three steps nearer to her. 
Her thin little chest was heaving up and down, 
and she spoke in a strange, unchildish voice. 

“You are not kind,” she said. “You are not 
kind.” And she turned again and went out of 
the room, leaving Miss Minchin staring after 
her strange, small figure in stony anger. 

The child walked up the staircase, holding 
tightly to her doll; she meant to go to her bed¬ 
room, but at the door she was met by Miss 
Amelia. 

“ You are not to go in there,” she said. “ That 
is not your room now.” 

“ Where is my room ? ” asked Sara. 

“You are to sleep in the attic next to the 
cook.” 

Sara walked on. She mounted two flights 
more, and reached the door of the attic room, 
opened it and went in, shutting it behind her. 
She stood against it and looked about her. The 
room was slanting-roofed and whitewashed; there 
was a rusty grate, an iron bedstead, and some odd 
articles of furniture, sent up from better rooms 
below, where they had been used until they were 
considered to be worn out. Under the skylight 
in the roof, which showed nothing but an ob¬ 
long piece of dull gray sky, there was a battered 
old red footstool. 

Sara went to it and sat down. She was a queer 


14 


Sara Crewe; or 


child, as I have said before, and quite unlike other 
children. She seldom cried. She did not cry 
now. She laid her doll, Emily, across her knees, 
and put her face down upon her, and her arms 
around her, and sat there, her little black head 
resting on the black crape, not saying one word, 
not making one sound. 

From that day her life changed entirely„ Some¬ 
times she used to feel as if it must be another life 
altogether, the life of some other child. She was 
a little drudge and outcast; she was given her 
lessons at odd times and expected to learn with¬ 
out being taught; she was sent on errands by 
Miss Minchin, Miss Amelia and the cook. No¬ 
body took any notice of her except when they 
ordered her about. She was often kept busy all 
day and then sent into the deserted school-room 
with a pile of books to learn her lessons or prac¬ 
tise at night. She had never been intimate with 
the other pupils, and soon she became so shabby 
that, taking her queer clothes together with her 
queer little ways, they began to look upon her as 
a being of another world than their own. The fact 
was that, as a rule, Miss Minchin’s pupils were 
rather dull, matter-of-fact young people, accus¬ 
tomed to being rich and comfortable; and Sara, 
with her elfish cleverness, her desolate life, and 
her odd habit of fixing her eyes upon them and 


What Happened at Miss Mine hints 15 

staring them out of countenance, was too much 
for them. 

“ She always looks as if she was finding you 
out,” said one girl, who was sly and given to mak¬ 
ing mischief. “ I am,” said Sara promptly, when 
she heard of it. “ That’s what I look at them for. 
I like to know about people. I think them over 
afterward.” 

She never made any mischief herself or inter¬ 
fered with any one. She talked very little, did as 
she was told, and thought a great deal. Nobody 
knew, and in fact nobody cared, whether she was 
unhappy or happy, unless, perhaps, it was Emily, 
who lived in the attic and slept on the iron bed¬ 
stead at night. Sara thought Emily understood 
her feelings, though she was only wax and had a 
habit of staring herself. Sara used to talk to her 
at night. 

“ You are the only friend I have in the world,” 
she would say to her. “ Why don’t you say some¬ 
thing ? Why don’t you speak ? Sometimes I am 
sure you could, if you would try. It ought to 
make you try, to know you are the only thing I 
have. If I were you, I should try. Why don’t 
you try ? ” 

It really was a very strange feeling she had 
about Emily. It arose from her being so desolate. 
She did not like to own to herself that her only 
friend, her only companion, could feel and hear 


16 Sara Crewe; or 

nothing. She wanted to believe, or to pretend to 
believe, that Emily understood and sympathized 
with her, that she heard her even though she did 
not speak in answer. She used to put her in a 
chair sometimes and sit opposite to her on the old 
red footstool, and stare at her and think and pre¬ 
tend about her until her own eyes would grow 
large with something which was almost like fear, 
particularly at night, when the garret was so still, 
when the only sound that was to be heard was the 
occasional squeak and scurry of rats in the wain¬ 
scot. There were rat-holes in the garret, and 
Sara detested rats, and was always glad Emily 
was with her when she heard their hateful squeak 
and rush and scratching. One of her “ pretends ” 
was that Emily was a kind of good witch and 
could protect her. Poor little Sara! everything 
was “ pretend ” with her. She had a strong im¬ 
agination; there was almost more imagination 
than there was Sara, and her whole forlorn, 
uncared-for child-life was made up of imagin¬ 
ings. She imagined and pretended things until 
she almost believed them, and she would scarcely 
have been surprised at any remarkable thing that 
could have happened. So she insisted to herself 
that Emily understood all about her troubles and 
was really her friend. 

“ As to answering,” she used to say, “ 1 don’t 
answer very often. I never answer when I can 


What Happened at Miss Minchin s ij 

help it. When people are insulting you, there is 
nothing so good for them as not to say a word— 
just to look at them and think. Miss Minchin 
turns pale with rage when I do it. Miss Amelia 
looks frightened, so do the girls. They know you 
are stronger than they are, because you are strong 
enough to hold in your rage and they are not, 
and they say stupid things they wish they hadn’t 
said afterward. There’s nothing so strong as 
rage, except what makes you hold it in—that’s 
stronger. It’s a good thing not to answer your 
enemies. I scarcely ever do. Perhaps Emily is 
more like me than I am like myself. Perhaps she 
would rather not answer her friends, even. She 
keeps it all in her heart.” 

But though she tried to satisfy herself with 
these arguments, Sara did not find it easy. When, 
after a long, hard day, in which she had been sent 
here and there, sometimes on long errands, 
through wind and cold and rain; and, when she 
came in wet and hungry, had been sent out again 
because nobody chose to remember that she was 
only a child, and that her thin little legs might be 
tired, and her small body, clad in its forlorn, too 
small finery, all too short and too tight, might be 
chilled; when she had been given only harsh 
words and cold, slighting looks for thanks; when 
the cook had been vulgar and insolent; when 
Miss Minchin had been in her worst moods, and 


18 Sara Crewe; or 

when she had seen the girls sneering at her among 
themselves and making fun of her poor, outgrown 
clothes—then Sara did not find Emily quite all 
that her sore, proud, desolate little heart needed 
as the doll sat in her little old chair and stared. 

One of these nights, when she came up to the 
garret cold, hungry, tired, and with a tempest 
raging in her small breast, Emily’s stare seemed 
so vacant, her sawdust legs and arms so limp and 
inexpressive, that Sara lost all control over her¬ 
self. 

“ I shall die presently 1 ” she said at first. 

Emily stared. 

“ I can’t bear this!” said the poor child, trem¬ 
bling. “ I know I shall die. I’m cold, I’m wet, I’m 
starving to death. I’ve walked a thousand miles 
to-day, and they have done nothing but scold me 
from morning until night. And because I could 
not find that last thing they sent me for, they 
would not give me any supper. Some men 
laughed at me because my old shoes made me 
slip down in the mud. I’m covered with mud 
now. And they laughed! Do you hear ! ” 

She looked at the staring glass eyes and com¬ 
placent wax face, and suddenly a sort of heart¬ 
broken rage seized her. She lifted her little sav¬ 
age hand and knocked Emily off the chair, burst¬ 
ing into a passion of sobbing. 

“You are nothing but a doll!” she cried 


What Happened at Miss Minchins 19 

‘‘Nothing but a doll—doll—doll! You care for 
nothing. You are stuffed with sawdust. You 
never had a heart. Nothing could ever make you 
feel. You are a doll! ” 

Emily lay upon the floor, with her legs igno- 
miniously doubled up over her head, and a new 
flat place on the end of her nose; but she was still 
calm, even dignified. 

Sara hid her face on her arms and sobbed. 
Some rats in the wall began to fight and bite each 
other, and squeak and scramble. But, as I have 
already intimated, Sara was not in the habit of 
crying. After a while she stopped, and when she 
stopped she looked at Emily, who seemed to be 
gazing at her around the side of one ankle, and 
actually with a kind of glassy-eyed sympathy. 
Sara bent and picked her up. Remorse over¬ 
took her. 

“ You can't help being a doll," she said, with a 
resigned sigh, “ any more than those girls down¬ 
stairs can help not having any sense. We are not 
all alike. Perhaps you do your sawdust best." 

None of Miss Minchin’s young ladies were very 
remarkable for being brilliant; they were select, 
but some of them were very dull, and some of 
them were fond of applying themselves to their 
lessons. Sara, who snatched her lessons at all 
sorts of untimely hours from tattered and dis¬ 
carded books, and who had a hungry craving 


20 


Sara Crewe; or 


for everything readable, was often severe upon 
them in her small mind. They had books they 
never read; she had no books at all. If she had 
always had something to read, she would not 
have been so lonely. She liked romances and 
history and poetry; she would read anything. 
There was a sentimental housemaid in the estab¬ 
lishment who bought the weekly penny papers, 
and subscribed to a circulating library, from 
which she got greasy volumes containing stories 
of marquises and dukes who invariably fell in 
love with orange-girls and gypsies and servant- 
maids, and made them the proud brides of coro¬ 
nets ; and Sara often did parts of this maid’s 
work so that she might earn the privilege of read¬ 
ing these romantic histories. There was also a 
fat, dull pupil, whose name was Ermengarde St. 
John, who waa one of her resources. Ermen¬ 
garde had an intellectual father, who, in his de¬ 
spairing desire to encourage his daughter, con¬ 
stantly sent her valuable and interesting books, 
which were a continual source of grief to her. 
Sara had once actually found her crying over a 
big package of them. 

“ What is the matter with you?” she asked her, 
perhaps rather disdainfully. 

And it is just possible she would not have 
spoken to her, if she had not seen the books. The 
sight of books always gave Sara a hungry feeling, 


What Happened at Miss Mine kins ?\ 

and she could not help drawing near to them if 
only to read their titles. 

“ What is the matter with you ? ” she asked. 

“ My papa has sent me some more books,” 
answered Ermengarde woefully, “ and he expects 
me to read them.” 

“ Don’t you like reading?” said Sara. 

“ I hate it! ” replied Miss Ermengarde St. 
John. “ And he will ask me questions when he 
sees me : he will want to know how much I re¬ 
member ; how would you like to have to read all 
those? ” 

“ I’d like it better than anything else in the 
world,” said Sara. 

Ermengarde wiped her eyes to look at such a 
prodigy. 

“ Oh, gracious! ” she exclaimed. 

Sara returned the look with interest. A sud¬ 
den plan formed itself in her sharp mind. 

“ Look here! ” she said. “ If you’ll lend me 
those books, I’ll read them and tell you every¬ 
thing that’s in them afterward, and I’ll tell it to 
you so that you will remember it. I know I can. 
The ABC children always remember what I 
tell them.” 

“ Oh, goodness! ” said Ermengarde. “ Do you 
think you could ? ” 

“ I know I could,” answered Sara. “ I like to 
read, and I always remember. I’ll take care of 


22 


Sara Crewe; or 


the books, too; they will look just as new as they 
do now, when I give them back to you.” 

Ermengarde put her handkerchief in her pocket. 

“ If you’ll do that,” she said, “and if you’ll make 
me remember, I’ll give you—I’ll give you some 
money.” 

“ I don’t want your money,” said Sara. “ I want 
your books—I want them.” And her eyes grew 
big and queer, and her chest heaved once. 

“Take them, then,” said Ermengarde; “ I wish 
I wanted them, but I am not clever, and my father 
is, and he thinks I ought to be.” 

Sara picked up the books and marched off with 
them. But when she was at the door, she stopped 
and turned around. 

“ What are you going to tell your father ? ” she 
asked. 

“ Oh,” said Ermengarde, “ he needn’t know; 
he’ll think I’ve read them.” 

Sara looked down at the books; her heart real¬ 
ly began to beat fast. 

“ I won’t do it,” she said rather slowly, “ if you 
are going to tell him lies about it—I don’t like 
lies. Why can’t you tell him I read them and 
then told you about them ? ” 

“ But he wants me to read them,” said Ermen¬ 
garde. 

“ He wants you to know what is in them,” said 
Sara; “ and if I can tell it to you in an easy way 


What Happened at Miss Minchin s 23 

and make you remember, I should think he would 
like that.” 

“ He would like it better if I read them myself,” 
replied Ermengarde. 

“ He will like it, I dare say, if you learn any¬ 
thing in any way,” said Sara. “ I should, if I were 
your father.” 

And though this was not a flattering way of 
stating the case, Ermengarde was obliged to admit 
it was true, and, after a little more argument, gave 
in. And so she used afterward always to hand 
over her books to Sara, and Sara would carry 
them to her garret and devour them ; and after 
she had read each volume, she would return it 
and tell Ermengarde about it in a way of her own. 
She had a gift for making things interesting. 
Her imagination helped her to make everything 
rather like a story, and she managed this matter 
so well that Miss St. John gained more informa¬ 
tion from her books than she would have gained 
if she had read them three times over by her poor 
stupid little self. When Sara sat down by her 
and began to tell some story of travel or history, 
she made the travellers and historical people 
seem real; and Ermengarde used to sit and re¬ 
gard her dramatic gesticulations, her thin little 
flushed cheeks, and her shining, odd eyes with 
amazement. 

“ It sounds nicer than it seems in the book,” she 


Sara Crewe; or 


*4 

would say. “ I never cared about. Mary, 
Queen of Scots, before, and I always hated the 
French Revolution, but you make it seem like a 
story.” 

“ It is a story,” Sara would answer. “ They are 
all stories. Everything is a story—everything in 
this world. You are a story—I am a story—Miss 
Minchin is a story. You can make a story out of 
anything.” 

“ I can’t,” said Ermengarde. 

Sara stared at her a minute reflectively. 

“ No,” she said at last. “ I suppose you couldn’t. 
You are a little like Emily.” 

“ Who is Emily?” 

Sara recollected herself. She knew she was 
sometimes rather impolite in the candor of her 
remarks, and she did not want to be impolite to a 
girl who was not unkind—only stupid. Notwith¬ 
standing all her sharp little ways she had the sense 
to wish to be just to everybody. In the hours 
she spent alone, she used to argue out a great 
many curious questions with herself. One thing 
she had decided upon was, that a person who was 
clever ought to be clever enough not to be unjust 
or deliberately unkind to any one. Miss Minchin 
was unjust and cruel, Miss Amelia was unkind 
and spiteful, the cook was malicious and hasty- 
tempered—they all were stupid, and made her 
despise them, and she desired to be as unlike them 


What Happened at Miss Minchin s 25 

as possible. So she would be as polite as she 
could to people who in the least deserved polite¬ 
ness. 

“ Emily is—a person—I know,” she replied. 

“Do you like her? ” asked Ermengarde. 

“Yes, I do,” said Sara. 

Ermengarde examined her queer little face and 
figure again. She did look odd. She had on, 
that day, a faded blue plush skirt, which barely 
covered her knees, a brown cloth sacque, and a 
pair of olive-green stockings .which Miss Minchin 
had made her piece out with black ones, so that 
they would be long enough to be kept on. And 
yet Ermengarde was beginning slowly to admire 
her. Such a forlorn, thin, neglected little thing 
as that, who could read and read and remember 
and tell you things so that they did not tire you 
all out! A child who could speak French, and 
who had learned German, no one knew how! 
One could not help staring at her and feeling in¬ 
terested, particularly one to whom the simplest 
lesson was a trouble and a woe. 

“ Do you like me ? ” said Ermengarde, finally, at 
the end of her scrutiny. 

Sara hesitated one second, then she answered: 

“ I like you because you are not ill-natured—I 
like you for letting me read your books—I like 
you because you don’t make spiteful fun of me for 
what I can’t help. It’s not your fault that-” 


26 


Sara Crewe / or 


She pulled herself up quickly. She had been 
going to say, “ that you are stupid.” 

“ That what ? ” asked Ermengarde. 

“ That you can’t learn things quickly. If you 
can’t, you can’t. If I can, why, I can—that’s all.” 
She paused a minute, looking at the plump face 
before her, and then, rather slowly, one of her 
wise, old-fashioned thoughts came to her. 

“ Perhaps,” she said, “ to be able to learn things 
quickly isn’t everything. To be kind is worth a 
good deal to other people. If Miss Minchin knew 
everything on earth, which she doesn’t, and if she 
was like what she is now, she’d still be a detesta¬ 
ble thing, and everybody would hate her. Lots of 
clever people have done harm and been wicked. 
Look at Robespierre-” 

She stopped again and examined her compan¬ 
ion’s countenance. 

“ Do you remember about him ? ” she demand¬ 
ed. “ I believe you’ve forgotten.” 

“ Well, I don’t remember all of it,” admitted 
Ermengarde. 

“Well,” said Sara, with courage and determi¬ 
nation, “ I’ll tell it to you over again.” 

And she plunged once more into the gory rec¬ 
ords of the French Revolution, and told such 
stories of it, and made such vivid pictures of its 
horrors, that Miss St. John was afraid to go to 
bed afterward, and hid her head under the blank' 


What Happened at Miss Mine kins 27 

ets when she did go, and shivered until she fell 
asleep. But afterward she preserved lively rec¬ 
ollections of the character of Robespierre, and 
did not even forget Marie Antoinette and the 
Princess de Lamballe. 

“You know they put her head on a pike and 
danced around it,” Sara had said ; “ and she had 
beautiful blonde hair; and when I think of her, I 
never see her head on her body, but always on a 
pike, with those furious people dancing and howl¬ 
ing.” 

Yes, it was true; to this imaginative child 
everything was a story; and the more books she 
read, the more imaginative she became. One of 
her chief entertainments was to sit in her garret, 
or walk about it, and “ suppose ” things. On a 
cold night, when she had not had enough to eat, 
she would draw the red footstool up before the 
empty grate, and say in the most intense voice: 

“ Suppose there was a grate, wide steel grate 
here, and a great glowing fire—a glowing fire— 
with beds of red-hot coal and lots of little danc¬ 
ing, flickering flames. Suppose there was a soft, 
deep rug, and this was a comfortable chair, all 
cushions and crimson velvet; and suppose I had 
a crimson velvet frock on, and a deep lace collar, 
like a child in a picture; and suppose all the rest 
of the room was furnished in lovely colors, and 
there were book-shelves full of books, which 


28 


Sara Crewe; or 


changed by magic as soon as you had read them; 
and suppose there was a little table here, with a 
snow-white cover on it, and little silver dishes, 
and in one there was hot, hot soup, and in an¬ 
other a roast chicken, and in another some rasp¬ 
berry-jam tarts with criss-cross on them, and in 
another some grapes; and suppose Emily could 
speak, and we could sit and eat our supper, and 
then talk and read; and then suppose there was 
a soft, warm bed in the corner, and when we were 
tired we could go to sleep, and sleep as long as 
we liked.” 

Sometimes, after she had supposed things like 
these for half an hour, she would feel almost 
warm, and would creep into bed with Emily and 
fall asleep with a smile on her face. 

“ What large, downy pillows! ” she would 
whisper. “ What white sheets and fleecy blank¬ 
ets ! ” And she almost forgot that her real pil¬ 
lows had scarcely any feathers in them at all, 
and smelled musty, and that her blankets and 
coverlid were thin and full of holes. 

At another time she would “ suppose ” she was 
a princess, and then she would go about the house 
with an expression on her face which was a source 
of great secret annoyance to Miss Minchin, be¬ 
cause it seemed as if the child scarcely heard the 
spiteful, insulting things said to her, or, if she 
heard them, did not care for them at all. Some- 


What Happened at Miss Minchins jg 

times, while she was in the midst of some harsh 
and cruel speech, Miss Minchin would find the 
odJ, unchildish eyes fixed upon her with some¬ 
thing like a proud smile in them. At such times 
she did not know that Sara was saying to herself: 

“ You don’t know that you are saying these 
things to a princess, and that if I chose I could 
wave my hand and order you to execution. I 
only spare you because I am a princess, and you 
are a poor, stupid, old, vulgar thing, and don’t 
know any better.” 

This used to please and amuse her more than 
anything else; and queer and fanciful as it was, 
she found comfort in it, and it was not a bad 
thing for her. It really kept her from being 
made rude and malicious by the rudeness and 
malice of those about her. 

“ A princess must be polite,” she said to herself. 
And so when the servants, who took their tone 
from their mistress, were insolent and ordered 
her about, she would hold her head erect, and 
reply to them sometimes in a way which made 
them stare at her, it was so quaintly civil. 

“lama princess in rags and tatters,” she would 
think, “ but I am a princess, inside. It would be 
easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth-of- 
gold; it is a great deal more of a triumph to be 
one all the time when no one knows it. There 
was Marie Antoinette; when she was in prison,, 


30 


Sara Crewe / or 

and her throne was gone, and she had only a 
black gown on, and her hair was white, and they 
insulted her and called her the Widow Capet,— 
she was a great deal more like a queen then than 
when she was so gay and had everything grand. 
I like her best then. Those howling mobs 
of people did not frighten her. She was stronger 
than they were even when they cut her head 
off.” 

Once when such thoughts were passing through 
her mind the look in her eyes so enraged Miss 
Minchin that she flew at Sara and boxed her ears. 

Sara awakened from her dream, started a little, 
^nd then broke into a laugh. 

What are you laughing at, you bold, impu¬ 
dent child ! ” exclaimed Miss Minchin. 

It took Sara a few seconds to remember she was 
a princess. Her cheeks were red and smarting 
from the blows she had received. 

“ I was thinking,” she said. 

“ Beg my pardon immediately,” said Miss Min¬ 
chin. 

“ I will beg your pardon for laughing, if it was 
rude,” said Sara; “but I won’t beg your pardon 
for thinking.” 

“What were you thinking?” demanded Miss 
Minchin. “How dare you think? What were 
you thinking? ” 

This occurred in the school-room, and all the 


What Happened at Miss Mine kins 31 

girls looked up from their books to listen. It al¬ 
ways interested them when Miss Minchin flew at 
Sara, because Sara always said something queer, 
and never seemed in the least frightened. She 
was not in the least frightened now, though her 
boxed ears were scarlet, and her eyes were as 
bright as stars. 

“ I was thinking,” she answered gravely and 
quite politely, “ that you did not know what you 
were doing.” 

“ That I did not know what I was doing! ” Miss 
Minchin fairly gasped. 

“Yes,” said Sara, “and I was thinking what 
would happen, if I were a princess and you boxed 
my ears—what I should do to you. And I was 
thinking that if I were one, you would never dare 
to do it, whatever I said or did. And I was think¬ 
ing how surprised and frightened you would be 
if you suddenly found out-” 

She had the imagined picture so clearly be¬ 
fore her eyes, that she spoke in a manner which 
had an effect even on Miss Minchin. It almost 
seemed for the moment to her narrow, unimag¬ 
inative mind that there must be some real power 
behind this candid daring. 

“ What! ” she exclaimed, “ found out what ? ” 

“ That I really was a princess,” said Sara, “ and 
could do anything—anything I liked.” 

“ Go to your room,” cried Miss Minchin breath* 


32 


Sara Crewe ; or 


lessly, “ this instant. Leave the school - room. 
Attend to your lessons, young ladies/* 

Sara made a little bow. 

“ Excuse me for laughing, if it was impolite/* 
she said, and walked out of the room, leaving 
Miss Minchin in a rage and the girls whispering 
over their books. 

“ I shouldn’t be at all surprised if she did turn 
out to be something,” said one of them. “ Sup¬ 
pose she should 1 ** 

That very afternoon Sara had an opportunity 
of proving to herself whether she was really a 
princess or not. It was a dreadful afternoon. 
For several days it had rained continuously, the 
streets were chilly and sloppy; there was mud 
everywhere — sticky London mud — and over 
everything a pall of fog and drizzle. Of course 
there were several long and tiresome errands to 
be done,—there always were on days like this,— 
and Sara was sent out again and again, until her 
shabby clothes were damp through. The absurd 
old feathers on her forlorn hat were more drag¬ 
gled and absurd than ever, and her down-trodden 
shoes were so wet they could not hold any more 
water. Added to this, she had been deprived of 
her dinner, because Miss Minchin wished to pun¬ 
ish her. She was very hungry. She was so cold 
and hungry and tired that her Little face had a 


What Happened at Miss Minchin s 33 

pinched look, and now and then some kind-hearted 
person passing her in the crowded street glanced 
at her with sympathy. But she did not know 
that. She hurried on, trying to comfort herself 
in that queer way of hers by pretending and 
“ supposing,”—but really this time it was harder 
than she had ever found it, and once or twice she 
thought it almost made her more cold and hungry 
instead of less so. But she persevered obstinately. 
“ Suppose I had dry clothes on,” she thought. 
“Suppose I had good shoes and a long, thick 
coat and merino stockings and a whole umbrella. 
And suppose—suppose, just when I was near a 
baker’s where they sold hot buns, I should find 
sixpence—which belonged to nobody. Suppose, 
if I did, I should go into the shop and buy six of 
the hottest buns, and should eat them all without 
stopping.” 

Some very odd things happen in this world 
sometimes. It certainly was an odd thing which 
happened to Sara. She had to cross the street 
just as she was saying this to herself—the mud 
was dreadful — she almost had to wade. She 
picked her way as carefully as she could, but she 
could not save herself much, only, in picking her 
way she had to look down at her feet and the 
mud, and in looking down—just as she reached 
the pavement—she saw something shining in the 
gutter. A piece of silver—a tiny piece trodden 
3 


34 


Sara Crewe / or 

upon by many feet, but still with spirit enough to 
shine a little. Not quite a sixpence, but the next 
thing to it—a four-penny piece! In one second it 
was in her cold, little red and blue hand. 

u Oh ! ” she gasped. “ It is true! ” 

And then, if you will believe me, she looked 
straight before her at the shop directly facing 
her. And it was a baker’s, and a cheerful, stout, 
motherly woman, with rosy cheeks, was just put¬ 
ting into the window a tray of delicious hot buns,— 
large, plump, shiny buns, with currants in them. 

It almost made Sara feel faint for a few seconds 
—the shock and the sight of the buns and the de¬ 
lightful odors of warm bread floating up through 
the baker’s cellar-window. 

She knew that she need not hesitate to use the 
little piece of money. It had evidently been ly¬ 
ing in the mud for some time, and its owner was 
completely lost in the streams of passing people 
who crowded and jostled each other all through 
the day. 

“ But I’ll go and ask the baker’s woman if she 
has lost a piece of money,” she said to herself, 
rather faintly. 

So she crossed the pavement and put her wet 
foot on the step of the shop; and as she did so 
she saw something which made her stop. 

It was a little figure more forlorn than her own 
—a little figure which was not much more than a 


JVkat Happened at Miss Minchins 35 

bundle of rags, from which small, bare, red and 
muddy feet peeped out—only because the rags 
with which the wearer was trying to cover them 
were not long enough. Above the rags appeared 
a shock head of tangled hair and a dirty face, 
with big, hollow, hungry eyes. 

Sara knew they were hungry eyes the moment 
she saw them, and she felt a sudden sympathy. 

“ This,” she said to herself, with a little sigh, 
" * f ^ 1 1 ' • ; 
thau I am.” 

The child—this "one of the Populace”-— ed 

up • t Sara, and shuffled herself aside a little, \o 

as to give ner more room, ane was used to be¬ 
ing made to give room to everybody. She knew 
that if a policeman chanced to see her, he would 
tell her to “ move on.” 

Sara clutched her little four-penny piece, and 
hesitated a few seconds. Then she spoke to her. 

“ Are you hungry ? ” she asked. 

The child shuffled herself and her rags a little 
more. 

"Ain’t I jist!” she said, in a hoarse voice. 
" Jist ain’t I! ” 

" Haven’t you had any dinner ? ” said Sara. 

"No dinner,”more hoarsely still and with more 
shuffling, " nor yet no bre’fast—nor yet no supper 
—nor nothin’.” 

" Since when ? ” asked Sara. 



36 


Sara Crewe; or 

“Dun’no. Never got nothin* to-day—nowhere. 
I’ve axed and axed.” 

Just to look at her made Sara more hungry and 
faint. But those queer little thoughts were at 
work in her brain, and she was talking to herself 
though she was sick at heart. 

“ If I’m a princess,” she was saying—“if I’m a 
orincess—! When they were poor and driven 
from their thrones—they always shared—with the 
Populace—if they met one poorer and hungrier. 
They always shared. Buns are a penny each. 
If it had been sixpence! I could have eaten six. 
It won’t be enough for either of us—but it will 
be better than nothing.” 

“ Wait a minute,” she said to the beggar-child. 
She went into the shop. It was warm and smelled 
delightfully. The woman was just going to put 
more hot buns in the window. 

“ If you please,” said Sara, “ have you lost four- 
pence—a silver fourpence?” And she held the 
forlorn little piece of money out to her. 

The woman looked at it and at her—at her in¬ 
tense little face and draggled, once-fine clothes. 

“ Bless us—no,” she answered. “ Did you find 
it?” 

“ In the gutter,” said Sara. 

“ Keep it, then,” said the woman. “ It may 
have been there a week, and goodness knows who 
lost it. You could never find out.” 


What Happened at Miss Minchins 37 

“ I know that,” said Sara, “ but I thought’d ask 
you.” 

“Not many would,” said the woman, looking 
puzzled and interested and good-natured all at 
once. “Do you want to buy something?” she 
added, as she saw Sara glance toward the buns. 

“ Four buns, if you please,” said Sara; “ those 
at a penny each.” 

The woman went to the window and put some 
in a paper bag. Sara noticed that she put in six. 

“ I said four, if you please,” she explained. “ I 
have only the fourpence.” 

“ I’ll throw in two for make-weight,” said the 
woman, with her good-natured look. “ I dare say 
you can eat them some time. Aren’t you hun- 
gry?” 

A mist rose before Sara’s eyes. 

“Yes,” she answered. “ I am very hungry, and 
I am much obliged to you for your kindness, and,” 
she was going to add, “there is a child outside 
who is hungrier than I am.” But just at that mo¬ 
ment two or three customers came in at once and 
each one seemed in a hurry, so she could only 
thank the woman again and go out. 

The child was still huddled up on the corner of 
the steps. She looked frightful in her wet and 
dirty rags. She was staring with a stupid look 
of suffering straight before her, and Sara saw her 
suddenly draw the back of her roughened, black 


Sara Crewe / or 


3S 

hand across her eyes to rub away the tears which 
seemed to have surprised her by forcing their 
way from under her lids. She was muttering to 
herself. 

Sara opened the paper bag and took out one of 
the hot buns, which had already warmed her cold 
hands a little. 

“ See,” she said, putting the bun on the ragged 
lap, “ that is nice and hot. Eat it, and you will 
not be so hungry.” 

The child started and stared up at her; then 
she snatched up the bun and began to cram it 
into her mouth with great wolfish bites. 

“ Oh, my! Oh, my! ” Sara heard her say 
hoarsely, in wild delight. 

“ Oh , my ! ” 

Sara took out three more buns and put them 
down. 

“ She is hungrier than I am,” she said to her¬ 
self. “ She’s starving.” But her hand trembled 
when she put down the fourth bun. “ I’m not 
starving,” she said—and she put down the fifth. 

The little starving London savage was still 
snatching and devouring when she turned away. 
She was too ravenous to give any thanks, even if 
she had been taught politeness—which she had 
not. She was only a poor little wild animal. 

“ Good-bve,” said Sara. 

When she reached the other side of the street 



"HAi IF/* SARA, “AND YOU WILL NOT BE SO HUNGRY. 

















































































What Happened at Miss Minchin s 41 

she looked back. The child had a bun in both 
hands, and had stopped in the middle of a bite to 
watch her. Sara gave her a little nod, and the 
child, after another stare,—a curious, longing 
stare,—jerked her shaggy head in response, and 
until Sara was out of sight she did not take 
another bite or even finish the one she had begun. 

At that moment the baker-woman glanced out 
of her shop-window. 

“Well, I never!” she exclaimed. “If that 
young ’un hasn’t given her buns to a beggar-child! 
It wasn’t because she didn’t want them, either— 
well, well, she looked hungry enough. I’d give 
something to know what she did it for.” She 
stood behind her window for a few moments and 
pondered. Then her curiosity got the better of 
her. She went to the door and spoke to the beg¬ 
gar-child. 

“ Who gave you those buns?” she asked her. 

The child nodded her head toward Sara’s van¬ 
ishing figure. 

“ What did she say?” inquired the woman. 

“ Axed me if I was ’ungry,” replied the hoarse 
voice. 

“ What did you say ? ” 

“ Said I was jist! ” 

“ And then she came in and got buns and came 
out and gave them to you, did she?” 

The child nodded. 


42 


Sara Crewe ; 0 ^ 


“ How many ? ” 

“ Five.*' 

The woman thought it over. “ Left just one 
for herself,” she said, in a low voice. “And she 
could have eaten the whole six—I saw it in her 
eyes.” 

She looked after the little, draggled, far-away 
figure, and felt more disturbed in her usually 
comfortable mind than she had felt for many a 
day. 

“ I wish she hadn’t gone so quick,” she said. 
“ I’m blest if she shouldn’t have had a dozen.” 

Then she turned to the child. 

“Are you hungry, yet?” she asked. 

“ I’m alius ’ungry,” was the answer ; “but ’tain’t 
so bad as it was.” 

“ Come in here,” said the woman, and she held 
open the shop-door. 

The child got up and shuffled in. To be invited 
into a warm place full of bread seemed an incred¬ 
ible thing. She did not know what was going to 
happen; she did not care, even. 

“ Get yourself warm,” said the woman, pointing 
to a fire in a tiny back room. “ And, look here,— 
when you’re hard up for a bite of bread, you can 
come here and ask for it. I’m blest if I won’t give 
it to you for that young un’s sake.” 

Sara found some comfort in her remaining bun. 


What Happened at Miss Minchins 43 

It was hot; and it was a great deal better than 
nothing. She broke off small pieces and ate them 
slowly to make it last longer. 

“ Suppose it was a magic bun/' she said, “ and 
a bite was as much as a whole dinner. I should 
be over-eating myself if I went on like this.” 

It was dark when she reached the square in 
which Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary was sit¬ 
uated ; the lamps were lighted, and in most of the 
windows gleams of light were to be seen. It 
always interested Sara to catch glimpses of the 
rooms before the shutters were closed. She liked 
to imagine things about people who sat before the 
fires in the houses, or who bent over books at the 
tables. There was, for instance, the Large Family 
opposite. She called these people the Large 
Family—not because they were large, for indeed 
most of them were little,—but because there were 
so many of them. There were eight children' in 
the Large Family, and a stout, rosy mother, and 
a stout, rosy father, and a stout, rosy grand¬ 
mamma, and any number of servants. The eight 
children were always either being taken out to 
walk, or to ride in perambulators, by comfortable 
nurses; or they were going to drive with their 
mamma; or they were flying to the door in the 
evening to kiss their papa and dance around him 
and drag off his overcoat and look for packages 
in the pockets of it; or they were crowding about 


44 Sara Crewe ; or 

the nursery windows and looking out and push¬ 
ing each other and laughing,—in fact they were 
always doing something which seemed enjoyable 
and suited to the tastes of a large family. Sara 
was quite attached to them, and had given them 
all names out of books. She called them the 
Montmorencys, when she did not call them the 
Large Family. The fat, fair baby with the lace 
cap was Ethelberta Beauchamp Montmorency; 
the next baby was Violet Cholmondely Mont¬ 
morency ; the little boy who could just stagger, 
and who had such round legs, was Sydney Cecil 
Vivian Montmorency; and then came Lilian 
Evangeline, Guy Clarence, Maud Marian, Rosa* 
lind Gladys, Veronica Eustacia, and Claude 
Harold Hector. 

Next door to the Large Family lived the Maid¬ 
en Lady, who had a companion, and two par¬ 
rots, and a King Charles spaniel; but Sara was 
not so very fond of her, because she did nothing 
in particular but talk to the parrots and drive out 
with the spaniel. The most interesting person of 
all lived next door to Miss Minchin herself. Sara 
called him the Indian Gentleman. He was an 
elderly gentleman who was said to have lived in 
the East Indies, and to be immensely rich and to 
have something the matter with his liver,—in fact, 
it had been rumored that he had no liver at all, 
and was much inconvenienced by the fact. At 


What Happened at Miss Minchins 45 

any rate, he was very yellow and he did not look 
happy; and when he went out to his carriage, he 
was almost always wrapped up in shawls and 
overcoats, as if he were cold. He had a native 
servant who looked even colder than himself, and 
he had a monkey who looked colder than the 
native servant. Sara had seen the monkey sitting 
on a table, in the sun, in the parlor window, and 
he always wore such a mournful expression that 
she sympathized with him deeply. 

“ I dare say,” she used sometimes to remark to 
herself, “ he is thinking all the time of cocoanut 
trees and of swinging by his tail under a tropical 
sun. He might have had a family dependent on 
him too, poor thing ! ” 

The native servant, whom she called the Lascar, 
looked mournful too, but he was evidently very 
faithful to his master. 

“ Perhaps he saved his master’s life in the Sepoy 
rebellion,” she thought. “ They look as if they 
might have had all sorts of adventures. I wish I 
could speak to the Lascar. I remember a little 
Hindustani.” 

And one day she actually did speak to him, 
and his start at the sound of his own language ex¬ 
pressed a great deal of surprise and delight. He 
was waiting for his master to come out to the car¬ 
riage, and Sara, who was going on an errand as 
usual, stopped and spoke a few words. She had a 


46 Sara Crewe; or 

special gift for languages and had remembered 
enough Hindustani to make herself understood 
by him. When his master came out, the Lascar 
spoke to him quickly, and the Indian Gentleman 
turned and looked at her curiously. And after¬ 
ward the Lascar always greeted her with salaams 
of the most profound description. And occasion¬ 
ally they exchanged a few words. She learned 
that it was true that the Sahib was very rich— 
that he was ill—and also that he had no wife nor 
children, and that England did not agree with the 
monkey. 

“ He must be as lonely as I am,” thought Sara. 
“ Being rich does not seem to make him happy.” 

That evening, as she passed the windows, the 
Lascar was closing the shutters, and she caught a 
glimpse of the room inside. There was a bright 
fire glowing in the grate, and the Indian Gentle¬ 
man was sitting before it, in a luxurious chair. 
The room was richly furnished, and looked de¬ 
lightfully comfortable, but the Indian Gentle¬ 
man sat with his head resting on his hand, and 
looked as lonely and unhappy as ever. 

“ Poor man! ” said Sara; “ I wonder what you 
are ‘ supposing ’ ?” 

When she went into the house she met Miss 
Minchin in the hall. 

“ Where have you wasted your time ? ” said 
Miss Minchin. “You have been out for hours 1 ” 



HE WAS WAITING FOR HIS MASTER TO COME OUT TO THE CARRIAGE ANt 
SARA STOPPED AND SPOKE A FEW WORDS TO HIM.” 

































































f 


* 




What Happened at Miss Minchin s 49 

“ It was so wet and muddy,” Sara answered. 
“ It was hard to walk, because my shoes were so 
bad and slipped about so.” 

“Make no excuses,” said Miss Minchin, “and 
tell no falsehoods.” 

Sara went downstairs to the kitchen. 

“Why didn’t you stay all night?” said the 
cook. 

“ Here are the things,” said Sara, and laid her 
purchases on the table. 

The cook looked over them, grumbling. She 
was in a very bad temper indeed. 

“May I have something to eat?” Sara asked 
rather faintly. 

“ Tea’s over and done with,” was the answer. 
“ Did you expect me to keep it hot for you ? ” 

Sara was silent a second. 

“ I had no dinner,” she said, and her voice was 
quite low. She made it low, because she was 
afraid it would tremble. 

“ There’s some bread in the pantry,” said the 
cook. “ That’s all you’ll get at this time of day.” 

Sara went and found the bread. It was old and 
hard and dry. The cook was in too bad a humor 
to give her anything to eat with it. She had just 
been scolded by Miss Minchin, and it was always 
safe and easy to vent her own spite on Sara. 

Really it was hard for the child to climb the 
three long flights of stairs leading to her garret. 
$ 


50 


Sara Crewe; or 


She often found them long and steep when she 
was tired, but to-night it seemed as if she would 
never reach the top. Several times a lump rose 
in her throat and she was obliged to stop to rest. 

“ I can’t pretend anything more to-night,” she 
said wearily to herself. “I’m sure I can’t. I'll 
eat my bread and drink some water and then go 
to sleep, and perhaps a dream will come and pre¬ 
tend for me. I wonder what dreams are.” 

Yes, when she reached the top landing there 
were tears in her eyes, and she did not feel like a 
princess—only like a tired, hungry, lonely, lonely 
child. 

“ If my papa had lived,” she said, “ they would 
not have treated me like this. If my papa had 
lived, he would have taken care of me.” 

Then she turned the handle and opened the 
garret-door. 

Can you imagine it—can you believe it? I find 
it hard to believe it myself. And Sara found it 
impossible; for the first few moments she thought 
something strange had happened to her eyes—to 
her mind—that the dream had come before she 
had had time to fall asleep. 

“ Oh ! ” she exclaimed breathlessly. “ Oh ! It 
isn’t true! I know, I know it isn’t true! ” And 
she slipped into the room and closed the door and 
locked it, and stood with her back against it, star¬ 
ing straight before her. 


What Happened at Miss Minchins 51 

Do you wonder? In the grate, which had been 
empty and rusty and cold when she left it, but 
which now was blackened and polished up quite 
respectably, there was a glowing, blazing fire. 
On the hob was a little brass kettle, hissing and 
boiling ; spread upon the floor was a warm, thick 
rug; before the fire was a folding-chair, unfolded 
and with cushions on it; by the chair was a small 
folding-table, unfolded, covered with a white 
cloth, and upon it were spread small covered 
dishes, a cup and saucer, and a tea-pot; on the 
bed were new, warm coverings, a curious wadded 
silk robe, and some books. The little, cold, miser¬ 
able room seemed changed into Fairyland. It 
was actually warm and glowing. 

“ It is bewitched ! ” said Sara. “ Or I am be¬ 
witched. I only think I see it all; but if I can 
only keep on thinking it, I don’t care—I don’t 
care—if I can only keep it up ! ” 

She was afraid to move, for fear it would melt 
away. She stood with her back against the door 
and looked and looked. But soon she began to 
feel warm, and then she moved forward. 

“ A fire that I only thought I saw surely wouldn’t 
feel warm,” she said. “ It feels real—real.” 

She went to it and knelt before it. She touched 
the chair, the table; she lifted the cover of one of 
the dishes. There was something hot and savory 
in it—something delicious. The tea-pot had tea 


52 


Sara Crewe • or 


in it, ready for the boiling water from the little 
kettle ; one plate had toast on it, another, muf¬ 
fins. 

“ It is real,” said Sara. “ The fire is real enough 
to warm me; I can sit in the chair; the things are 
real enough to eat.” 

It was like a fairy story come true—it was 
heavenly. She went to the bed and touched the 
blankets and the wrap. They were real too. She 
opened one book, and on the title-page was writ¬ 
ten in a strange hand, “ The little girl in the 
attic.” 

Suddenly—was it a strange thing for her to do ? 
—Sara put her face down on the queer, foreign 
looking quilted robe and burst into tears. 

“I don’t know who it is,” she said, “but some¬ 
body cares about me a little—somebody is my 
friend.” 

Somehow that thought warmed her more than 
the fire. She had never had a friend since those 
happy, luxurious days when she had had every¬ 
thing; and those days had seemed such a long 
way off—so far away as to be only like dreams— 
during these last years at Miss Minchin’s. 

She really cried more at this strange thought of 
having a friend—even though an unknown one— 
than she had cried over many of her worst troub¬ 
les. 

But these tears seemed different from the others, 


What Happened at Miss Minchin s 53 

for when she had wiped them away they did not 
seem to leave her eyes and her heart hot and 
smarting. 

And then imagine, if you can, what the rest of 
the evening was like. The delicious comfort of 
taking off the damp clothes and putting on the 
soft, warm, quilted robe before the glowing fire— 
of slipping her cold feet into the luscious littie 
wool-lined slippers she found near her chair. And 
then the hot tea and savory dishes, the cushioned 
chair and the books! 

It was just like Sara, that, once having found the 
things real, she should give herself up to the en¬ 
joyment of them to the very utmost. She had 
lived such a life of imagining, and had found her 
pleasure so long in improbabilities, that she was 
quite equal to accepting any wonderful thing 
that happened. After she was quite warm and 
had eaten her supper and enjoyed herself for an 
hour or so, it had almost ceased to be surprising 
to her that such magical surroundings should be 
hers. As to finding out who had done all this, 
she knew that it was out of the question. She 
did not know a human soul by whom it could 
seem in the least degree probable that it could 
have been done. 

“There is nobody,” she said to herself, “no¬ 
body.” She discussed the matter with Emily, it 
is true, but more because it was delightful to talk 


54 Sara Crewe ; or 

about it than with a view to making any discov¬ 
eries. 

“ But we have a friend, Emily,” she said ; “ we 
have a friend.” 

Sara could not even imagine a being charming 
enough to fill her grand ideal of her mysterious 
benefactor. If she tried to make in her mind a 
picture of him or her, it ended by being some¬ 
thing glittering and strange—not at all like a 
real person, but bearing resemblance to a sort of 
Eastern magician, with long robes and a wand. 
And when she fell asleep, beneath the soft white 
blanket, she dreamed all night of this magnificent 
personage, and talked to him in Hindustani, and 
made salaams to him. 

Upon one thing she was determined. She 
would not speak to any one of her good fortune 
—it should be her own secret; in fact, she was 
rather inclined to think that if Miss Minchin 
knew, she would take her treasures from her or 
in some way spoil her pleasure. So, when she 
went down the next morning, she shut her door 
very tight and did her best to look as if nothing 
unusual had occurred. And yet this was rather 
hard, because she could not help remembering, 
every now and then, with a sort of start, and her 
heart would beat quickly every time she repeated 
to herself, “ I have a friend ! ” 

It was a friend who evidently meant to continue 


What Happened at Miss Minchins 55 

to be kind, for when she went to her garret the 
next night—and she opened the door, it must be 
confessed, with rather an excited feeling—she 
found that the same hands had been again at 
work, and had done even more than before. The 
fire and the supper were again there, and beside 
them a number of other things which so altered 
the look of the garret that Sara quite lost her 
breath. A piece of bright, strange, heavy cloth 
covered the battered mantel, and on it some or¬ 
naments had been placed. All the bare, ugly 
things which could be covered with draperies 
had been concealed and made to look quite 
pretty. Some odd materials in rich colors had 
been fastened against the walls with sharp, fine 
tacks—so sharp that they could be pressed into 
the wood without hammering. Some brilliant 
fans were pinned up, and there were several large 
cushions. A long, old wooden box was covered 
with a rug, and some cushions lay on it, so that it 
wore quite the air of a sofa. 

Sara simply sat down, and looked, and looked 
again. 

“ It is exactly like something fairy come true,” 
she said ; “ there isn’t the least difference. I feel 
as if I might wish for anything—diamonds and 
bags of gold—and they would appear! That 
couldn’t be any stranger than this. Is this my 
garret? Am I the same cold, ragged, damp 


56 


Sara Crewe; or 

Sara ? And to think how I used to pretend, and 
pretend, and wish there were fairies! The one 
thing I always wanted was to see a fairy story 
come true. I am living in a fairy story! I feel 
as if I might be a fairy myself, and be able to turn 
things into anything else ! ” 

It was like a fairy story, and, what was best of 
all, it continued. Almost every day something 
new was done to the garret. Some new comfort 
or ornament appeared in it when Sara opened her 
door at night, until actually, in a short time, it 
was a bright little room, full of all sorts of odd 
and luxurious things. And the magician had 
taken care that the child should not be hungry, 
and that she should have as many books as she 
could read. When she left the room in the morn¬ 
ing, the remains of her supper were on the table, 
and when she returned in the evening, the magi¬ 
cian had removed them, and left another nice little 
meal. Downstairs Miss Minchin was as cruel 
and insulting as ever, Miss Amelia was as peevish, 
and the servants were as vulgar. Sara was sent 
on errands, and scolded, and driven hither and 
thither, but somehow it seemed as if she could 
bear it all. The delightful sense of romance and 
mystery lifted her above the cook’s temper and 
malice. The comfort she enjoyed and could al¬ 
ways look forward to was making her stronger. 
If she came home from her errands wet and tired, 


What Happened at Miss Minchin s 57 

she knew she would soon be warm, after she had 
climbed the stairs. In a few weeks she began 
to look less thin. A little color came into her 
cheeks, and her eyes did not seem much too big 
for her face. 

It was just when this was beginning to be so 
apparent that Miss Minchin sometimes stared at 
her questioningly, that another wonderful thing 
happened. A man came to the door and left 
several parcels. All were addressed (in large let¬ 
ters) to “ the little girl in the attic.” Sara herself 
was sent to open the door, and she took them in. 
She laid the two largest parcels down on the hall- 
table and was looking at the address, when Miss 
Minchin came down the stairs. 

“ Take the things upstairs to the young lady to 
whom they belong,” she said. “ Don’t stand there 
staring at them.” 

“ They belong to me,” answered Sara, quietly. 

“To you !” exclaimed Miss Minchin. “ What 
do you mean ? ” 

“ I don’t know where they came from,” said 
Sara, “ but they’re addressed to me.” 

Miss Minchin came to her side and looked at 
them with an excited expression. 

“ What is in them ? ” she demanded. 

“ I don’t know,” said Sara. 

“ Open them! ” she demanded, still more ex¬ 
citedly. 


58 Sara Crewe / or 

Sara did as she was told. They contained pretty 
and comfortable clothing,—clothing of different 
kinds; shoes and stockings and gloves, a warm 
coat, and even an umbrella. On the pocket of 
the coat was pinned a paper on which was writ¬ 
ten, “To be worn every day—will be replaced by 
others when necessary.” 

Miss Minchin was quite agitated. This was an 
incident which suggested strange things to her 
sordid mind. Could it be that she had made a 
mistake after all, and that the child so neglected 
and so unkindly treated by her had some power¬ 
ful friend in the background ? It would not be 
very pleasant if there should be such a friend, 
and he or she should kearn all the truth about the 
thin, shabby clothes, the scant food, the hard 
work. She felt queer indeed and uncertain, and 
she gave a side-glance at Sara. 

“Well,” she said, in a voice such as she had 
never used since the day the child lost her father 
—“ well, some one is very kind to you. As you 
have the things and are to have new ones when 
they are worn out, you may as well go and put 
them on and look respectable; and after you are 
dressed, you may come downstairs and learn your 
lessons in the school-room.” 

So it happened that, about half an hour after¬ 
ward, Sara struck the entire school-room of pupils 
dumb with amazement, by making her appearance 


What Happened at Miss Minchins 59 


in a costume such as she had never worn since 
the change of fortune whereby she ceased to be 
a show-pupil and a parlor-boarder. She scarcely 
seemed to be the same Sara. She was neatly 
dressed in a pretty gown of warm browns and 
reds, and even her stockings and slippers were 
nice and dainty. 

“ Perhaps some one has left her a fortune,” one 
of the girls whispered. “ I always thought some¬ 
thing would happen to her, she is so queer.” 

That night when Sara went to her room she 
carried out a plan she had been devising for some 
time. She wrote a note to her unknown friend. 
It ran as follows : 

“ I hope you will not think it is not polite that I should write 
this note to you when you wish to keep yourself a secret, but I 
do not mean to be impolite, or to try to find out at all, only I 
want to thank you for being so kind to me—so beautiful kind, 
and making everything like a fairy story. I am so grateful to 
you and I am so happy ! I used to be so lonely and cold and, 
hungry, and now, oh, just think what you have done for me! 
Please let me say just these words. It seems as if I ought to 
say them. Thank you—thank you—thank you / 

“The Little Girl in the Attic.” 

The next morning she left this on the little ta¬ 
ble, and it was taken away with the other things; 
so she felt sure the magician had received it, 
and she was happier for the thought. 

A few nights later a very odd thing happened 


6o 


Sara Crewe / or 


She found something in the room which she cer¬ 
tainly would never have expected. When she 
came in as usual she saw something small and 
dark in her chair,—an odd, tiny figure, which 
turned toward her a little, weird-looking, wistful 
face. 

“ Why, it’s the monkey! ” she cried. “ It is the 
Indian Gentleman’s monkey! Where can he 
have come from? ” 

It was the monkey, sitting up and looking so 
like a mite of a child that it really was quite pa¬ 
thetic ; and very soon Sara found out how he hap¬ 
pened to be in her room. The skylight was 
open, and it was easy to guess that he had crept 
out of his master’s garret-window, which was only 
a few feet away and perfectly easy to get in and 
out of, even for a climber less agile than a mon¬ 
key. He had probably climbed to the garret on 
a tour of investigation, and getting out upon the 
roof, and being attracted by the light in Sara’s 
attic, had crept in. At all events this seemed 
quite reasonable, and there he was; and when 
Sara went to him, he actually put out his queer, 
elfish little hands, caught her dress, and jumped 
into her arms. 

“Oh, you queer, poor, ugly, foreign little 
thing ! ” said Sara, caressing him. “ I can’t help 
liking you. You look like a sort of baby, but I 
am so glad you are not, because your mother 



"THE MONKEY SEEMED MUCH INTERESTED IN HER REMARKS/* 























What Happened at Miss Minchins 63 

could not be proud of you, and nobody would dare 
to say you were like any of your relations. But I 
do like you; you have such a forlorn little look 
in your face. Perhaps you are sorry you are so 
ugly, and it’s always on your mind. I wonder if 
you have a mind?” 

The monkey sat and looked at her while she 
talked, and seemed much interested in her re¬ 
marks, if one could judge by his eyes and his fore¬ 
head, and the way he moved his head up and 
down, and held it sideways and scratched it with 
his little hand. He examined Sara quite seri¬ 
ously, and anxiously, too. He felt the stuff of her 
dress, touched her hands, climbed up and exam¬ 
ined her ears, and then sat on her shoulder hold¬ 
ing a lock of her hair, looking mournful but not 
at all agitated. Upon the whole, he seemed 
pleased with Sara. 

“ But I must take you back,” she said to him, 
“ though I’m sorry to have to do it. Oh, the 
company you would be to a person! ” 

She lifted him from her shoulder, set him on 
her knee, and gave him a bit of cake. He sat 
and nibbled it, and then put his head on one side, 
looked at her, wrinkled his forehead, and then 
nibbled again, in the most companionable manner. 

“But you must go home,” said Sara at last; 
and she took him in her arms to carry him down¬ 
stairs. Evidently he did not want to leave the 


6 4 


Sara Crewe; or 

room, for as they reached the door he clung to 
her neck and gave a little scream of anger. 

“You mustn’t bean ungrateful monkey,” said 
Sara. “You ought to be fondest of your own 
family. I am sure the Lascar is good to you.” 

Nobody saw her on her way out, and very soon 
she was standing on the Indian Gentleman’s front 
steps, and the Lascar had opened the door for 
her. 

“ I found your monkey in my room,” she said 
in Hindustani. “ I think he got in through the 
window.” 

The man began a rapid outpouring of thanks; 
but, just as he was in the midst of them, a fretful, 
hollow voice was heard through the open door of 
the nearest room. The instant he heard it the 
Lascar disappeared, and left Sara still holding 
the monkey. 

It was not many moments, however, before he 
came back bringing a message. His master had 
told him to bring Missy into the library. The 
Sahib was very ill, but he wished to see Missy. 

Sara thought this odd, but she remembered 
reading stories of Indian gentlemen who, having 
no constitutions, were extremely cross and full of 
whims, and who must have their own way. So 
she followed the Lascar. 

When she entered the room the Indian Gentle¬ 
man was lying on an easy chair* propped up with 


What Happened at Miss Minchin s 65 

pillows. He looked frightfully ill. His yellow 
face was thin, and his eyes were hollow. He gave 
Sara a rather curious look—it was as if she wak¬ 
ened in him some anxious interest. 

“ You live next door?” he said. 

“Yes,” answered Sara. “I live at Miss Min- 
chin’s.” 

“ She keeps a boarding-school ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Sara. 

" And you are one of her pupils ? ” 

Sara hesitated a moment 

“ I don’t know exactly what I am,” she replied. 

“ Why not?” asked the Indian Gentleman. 

The monkey gave a tiny squeak, and Sara 
stroked him. 

“ At first,” she said, “ I was a pupil and a parlor 
boarder; but now-” 

“ What do you mean by ‘at first*?” asked the 
Indian Gentleman. 

“ When I was first taken there by my papa.” 

“Well, what has happened since then?” said 
the invalid, staring at her and knitting his brows 
with a puzzled expression. 

“ My papa died,” said Sara. “ He lost all his 
money, and there was none left for me—and there 
was no one to take care of me or pay Miss Min¬ 
chin, so-” 

“ So you were sent up into the garret and 
neglected, and made into a half-starved little 

5 


66 


Sara Crewe; or 


drudge! ” put in the Indian Gentleman. “ That 
is about it, isn’t it?” 

The color deepened on Sara’s cheeks. 

“ There was no one to take care of me, and no 
money,” she said. “ I belong to nobody.” 

“ What did your father mean by losing his 
money ? ” said the gentleman, fretfully. 

The red in Sara’s cheeks grew deeper, and she 
fixed her odd eyes on the yellow face. 

“ He did not lose it himself,” she said. “ He 
had a friend he was fond of, and it was his friend 
who took his money. I don’t know how. I don’t 
understand. He trusted his friend too much.” 

She saw the invalid start—the strangest start— 
as if he had been suddenly frightened. Then he 
spoke nervously and excitedly: 

“ That’s an old story,” he said. “ It happens 
every day; but sometimes those who are blamed 
—those who do the wrong—don’t intend it, and 
are not so bad. It may happen through a mistake 
—a miscalculation ; they may not be so bad.” 

“No,” said Sara, “but the suffering is just as 
bad for the others. It killed my papa.” 

The Indian Gentleman pushed aside some of 
the gorgeous wraps that covered him. 

“ Come a little nearer, and let me look at you,” 
he said. 

His voice sounded very strange; it had a more 
nervous and excited tone than before. Sara had 


What Happened at Miss Minchin s 67 

an odd fancy that he was half afraid to look at 
her. She came and stood nearer, the monkey 
clinging to her and watching his master anxious¬ 
ly over his shoulder. 

The Indian Gentleman’s hollow, restless eyes 
fixed themselves on her. 

“Yes,” he said at last. “Yes; I can see it. 
Tell me your father’s name.” 

“ His name was Ralph Crewe,” said Sara. “ Cap¬ 
tain Crewe. Perhaps,”—a sudden thought flash¬ 
ing upon her,—“ perhaps you may have heard of 
him? He died in India.” 

The Indian Gentleman sank back upon his 
pillows. He looked very weak, and seemed out 
of breath. 

“ Yes,” he said, “ I knew him. I was his friend. 
I meant no harm. If he had only lived he would 
have known. It turned out well after all. He 
was a fine young fellow. I was fond of him. I 
will make it right. Call—call the man.” 

Sara thought he was going to die. But there 
was no need to call the Lascar. He must have 
been waiting at the door. He was in the room 
and by his master’s side in an instant. He seemed 
to know what to do. He lifted the drooping head, 
and gave the invalid something in a small glass. 
The Indian Gentleman lay panting for a few min¬ 
utes, and then he spoke in an exhausted but eager 
voice, addressing the Lascar in Hindustani: 


68 


Sara Crewe; or 

“Go for Carmichael,” he said. “Tell him to 
come here at once. Tell him I have found the 
child ! ” 

When Mr. Carmichael arrived (which occurred 
in a very few minutes, for it turned out that he 
was no other than the father of the Large Family 
across the street), Sara went home, and was al¬ 
lowed to take the monkey with her. She cer¬ 
tainly did not sleep very much that night, though 
the monkey behaved beautifully, and did not dis¬ 
turb her in the least. It was not the monkey chat 
kept her awake—it was her thoughts, and her 
wonders as to what the Indian Gentleman had 
meant when he said, “Tell him I have found the 
child.” “ What child ? ” Sara kept asking herself. 
“ I was the only child there; but how had he 
found me, and why did he want to find me? And 
what is he going to do, now I am found ? Is it 
something about my papa? Do I belong to some¬ 
body? Is he one of my relations? Is something 
going to happen ? ” 

But she found out the very next day, in the 
morning; and it seemed that she had been living 
in a story even more than she had imagined. 
First, Mr. Carmichael came and had an interview 
with Miss Minchin. And it appeared that Mr. 
Carmichael, besides occupying the important 
situation of father to the Large Family was a 
lawyer, and had charge of the affairs of Mr. Car- 


What Happened at Miss Mine hints 69 

risford—which was the real name of the Indian 
Gentleman—and, as Mr. Carrisford’s lawyer, Mr. 
Carmichael had come to explain something curi¬ 
ous to Miss Minchin regarding Sara. But, being 
the father of the Large Family, he had a very 
kind and fatherly feeling for children; and so, 
after seeing Miss Minchin alone, what did he do 
but go and bring across the square his rosy, 
motherly, warm-hearted wife, so that she herself 
might talk to the little lonely girl, and tell 
her everything in the best and most motherly 
way. 

And then Sara learned that she was to be a 
poor little drudge and outcast no more, and that 
a great change had come in her fortunes; for all 
the lost fortune had come back to her, and a great 
deal had even been added to it. It was Mr. Car- 
risford who had been her father’s friend, and who 
had made the investments which had caused him 
the apparent loss of his money; but it had so 
happened that after poor young Captain Crewe’s 
death one of the investments which had seemed 
at the time the very worst had taken a sudden 
turn, and proved to be such a success that it had 
been a mine of wealth, and had more than doubled 
the Captain’s lost fortune, as well as making a 
fortune for Mr. Carrisford himself. But Mr. 
Carrisford had been very unhappy. He had truly 
loved his poor, handsome, generous young friend, 


70 Sara Crewe• or 

and the knowledge that he had caused his death 
had weighed upon him always, and broken both 
his health and spirit. The worst of it had been 
that, when first he thought himself and Captain 
Crewe ruined, he had lost courage and gone 
away because he was not brave enough to face 
the consequences of what he had done, and so he 
had not even known where the young soldier’s 
little girl had been placed. When he wanted to 
find her, and make restitution, he could discover 
no trace of her; and the certainty that she was 
poor and friendless somewhere had made him 
more miserable than ever. When he had taken 
the house next to Miss Minchin’s he had been 
so ill and wretched that he had for the time 
given up the search. His troubles and the Indian 
climate had brought him almost to death’s door— 
indeed, he had not expected to live more than a 
few months. And then one day the Lascar had 
told him about Sara’s speaking Hindustani, and 
gradually he had begun to take a sort of interest 
in the forlorn child, though he had only caught a 
glimpse of her once or twice and he had not con¬ 
nected her with the child of his friend, perhaps 
because he was too languid to think much about 
anything. But the Lascar had found out some¬ 
thing of Sara’s unhappy little life, and about the 
garret. One evening he had actually crept out of 
his own garret-window and looked into hers, which 


What Happened at Miss Minchin $ 71 

was a very easy matter, because, as I have said, 
it was only a few feet away—and he had told his 
master what he had seen, and in a moment of 
compassion the Indian Gentleman had told him to 
take into the wretched little room such comforts 
as he could carry from the one window to the 
other. And the Lascar, who had developed an 
interest in, and an odd fondness for, the child who 
had spoken to him in his own tongue, had been 
pleased with the work; and, having the silent 
swiftness and agile movements of many of his 
race, he had made his evening journeys across 
the few feet of roof from garret-window to garret- 
window, without any trouble at all. He had 
watched Sara’s movements until he knew exactly 
when she was absent from her room and when 
she returned to it, and so he had been able to cal¬ 
culate the best times for his work. Generally he 
had made them in the dusk of the evening; but 
once or twice, when he had seen her go out on 
errands, he had dared to go over in the daytime, 
being quite sure that the garret was never entered 
by any one but herself. His pleasure in the work 
and his reports of the results had added to the 
invalid’s interest in it, and sometimes the master 
had found the planning gave him something to 
think of, which made him almost forget his weari¬ 
ness and pain. And at last, when Sara brought 
home the truant monkey, he had felt a wish to 


72 


Sara Crewe / or 

see her, and then her likeness to her father had 
done the rest. 

“ And now, my dear,” said good Mrs. Carmi¬ 
chael, patting Sara’s hand, “ all your troubles are 
over, I am sure, and you are to come home with 
me and be taken care of as if you were one of my 
own little girls; and we are so pleased to think of 
having you with us until everything is settled, 
and Mr. Carrisford is better. The excitement of 
last night has made him very weak, but we really 
think he will get well, now that such a load is 
taken from his mind. And when he is stronger, 
I am sure he will be as kind to you as your own 
papa would have been. He has a very good 
heart, and he is fond of children—and he has no 
family at all. But we must make you happy and 
rosy, and you must learn to play and run about, 
as my little girls do-” 

“ As your little girls do ? ” said Sara. “ I won¬ 
der if I could. I used to watch them and won¬ 
der what it was like. Shall I feel as if I belonged 
to somebody ? ” 

“ Ah, my love, yes!—yes! ” said Mrs. Carmi¬ 
chael ; “ dear me, yes! ” And her motherly blue 
eyes grew quite moist, and she suddenly took Sara 
in her arms and kissed her. That very night, be¬ 
fore she went to sleep, Sara had made the ac¬ 
quaintance of the entire Large Family, and such 
excitement as she and the monkey had caused 







































What Happened at Miss Mine kin s 75 

in a very short time, there was no pleasanter 
sight to the Indian Gentleman than Sara sitting 
in her big chair on the opposite side of the 
hearth, with a book on her knee and her soft, 
dark hair tumbling over her warm cheeks. She 
had a pretty habit of looking up at him suddenly, 
with a bright smile, and then he would often say 
to her: 

“Are you happy, Sara?” 

And then she would answer: 

“ I feel like a real princess, Uncle Tom.” 

He had told her to call him Uncle Tom. 

“ There doesn’t seem to be anything left to 
4 suppose,’ ” she added. 

There was a little joke between them that he 
was a magician, and so could do anything he 
liked; and it was one of his pleasures to invent 
plans to surprise her with enjoyments she had not 
thought of. Scarcely a day passed in which he 
did not do something new for her. Sometimes 
she found new flowers in her room ; sometimes a 
fanciful little gift tucked into some odd corner; 
sometimes a new book on her pillow;—once as 
they sat together in the evening they heard the 
scratch of a heavy paw on the door of the room, 
and when Sara went to find out what it was, there 
stood a great dog—a splendid Russian boar-hound 
with a grand silver and gold collar. Stooping to 
read the inscription upon the collar, Sara was de- 


76 Sara Crewe ; or 

lighted to read the words: “ I am Boris; I serve 
the Princess Sara.” 

Then there was a sort of fairy nursery arranged 
for the entertainment of the juvenile members of 
the Large Family, who were always coming to 
see Sara and the Lascar and the monkey. Sara 
was as fond of the Large Family as they were of 
her. She soon felt as if she were a member of it, 
and the companionship of the healthy, happy 
children was very good for her. All the children 
rather looked up to her and regarded her as the 
cleverest and most brilliant of creatures—parti¬ 
cularly after it was discovered that she not only 
knew stories of every kind, and could invent new 
ones at a moment’s notice, but that she could help 
with lessons, and speak French and German, and 
discourse with the Lascar in Hindustani. 

It was rather a painful experience for Miss 
Minchin to watch her ex-pupil’s fortunes, as she 
had the daily opportunity to do, and to feel that 
she had made a serious mistake, from a business 
point of view. She had even tried to retrieve it 
by suggesting that Sara’s education should be 
continued under her care, and had gone to the 
length of making an appeal to the child herself. 

“ I have always been very fond of you,” she 
said. 

Then Sara fixed her eyes upon her and gave her 
one of her odd looks. 


What Happened at Miss Minchin s 77 

“ Have you ? ” she answered. 

“ Yes,” said Miss Minchin. “ Amelia and I have 
always said you were the cleverest child we had 
with us, and I am sure we could make you happy 
—as a parlor boarder.” 

Sara thought of the garret and the day her ears 
were boxed,—and of that other day, that dread¬ 
ful, desolate day when she had been told that she 
belonged to nobody ; that she had no home and 
no friends,—and she kept her eyes fixed on Miss 
Minchin’s face. 

“You know why I would not stay with you,” 
she said. 

And it seems probable that Miss Minchin did, 
for after that simple answer she had not the bold¬ 
ness to pursue the subject. She merely sent in a 
bill for the expense of Sara’s education and sup¬ 
port, and she made it quite large enough. And 
because Mr. Carrisford thought Sara would wish 
it paid, it was paid. When Mr. Carmichael paid 
it he had a brief interview with Miss Minchin in 
which he expressed his opinion with much clear¬ 
ness and force; and it is quite certain that Miss 
Minchin did not enjoy the conversation. 

Sara had been about a month with Mr. Cams’ 
ford, and had begun to realize that her happiness 
was not a dream, when one night the Indian Gen¬ 
tleman saw that she sat a long time with her 
cheek on her hand looking at the fire. 


yS Sara Crewe ; or 

“What are you ‘supposing,’ Sara?” he asked. 
Sara looked up with a bright color on her cheeks. 

“ I was ‘ supposing,’ ” she said ; “ I was remem¬ 
bering that hungry day, and a child I saw.” 

“ But there were a great many hungry days,” 
said the Indian Gentleman, with a rather sad tone 
in his voice. “ Which hungry day was it? ” 

“ I forgot you didn’t know,” said Sara. “ It 
was the day I found the things in my garret.” 

And then she told him the story of the bun-shop, 
and the fourpence, and the child who was hungrier 
than herself; and somehow as she told it, though 
she told it very simply indeed, the Indian Gentle¬ 
man found it necessary to shade his eyes with his 
hand and look down at the floor. 

“ And I was ‘ supposing ’ a kind of plan,” said 
Sara, when she had finished; “ I was thinking I 
would like to do something.” 

“ What is it ? ” said her guardian in a low tone. 
“ You may do anything you like to do, Princess.” 

“ I was wondering,” said Sara,—“ you know you 
say I have a great deal of money—and I was 
wondering if I could go and see the bun-woman 
and tell her that if, when hungry children—par¬ 
ticularly on those dreadful days—come and sit on 
the steps or look in at the window, she would 
just call them in and give them something to eat, 
she might send the bills to me and I would pay 
them—could I do that ? ” 


fVkat Happened at Miss Minchin s 79 

“You shall do it to-morrow morning,” said the 
Indian Gentleman. 

“ Thank you,” said Sara; “ you see I know 
what it is to be hungry, and it is very hard when 
one can’t even pretend it away.” 

“ Yes, yes, my dear,” said the Indian Gentle¬ 
man. “ Yes, it must be. Try to forget it. Come 
and sit on this footstool near my knee, and only 
remember you are a princess.” 

“ Yes,” said Sara, “ and I can give buns and 
bread to the Populace.” And she went and 
sat on the stool, and the Indian Gentleman (he 
used to like her to call him that, too, sometimes, 
—in fact very often) drew her small, dark head 
down upon his knee and stroked her hair. 

The next morning a carriage drew up before 
the door of the baker’s shop, and a gentleman 
and a little girl got out,—oddly enough, just as 
the bun-woman was putting a tray of smoking 
hot buns into the window. When Sara entered 
the shop the woman turned and looked at her 
and, leaving the buns, came and stood behind the 
counter. For a moment she looked at Sara very 
hard indeed, and then her good-natured face 
lighted up. 

“ I’m that sure I remember you, miss,” she said. 
“ Ar?d yet-” 

“ Yes,” said Sara, *' once you gave me six buns 
for fourpence, and-” 


So 


Sara Crewe; or 

“And you gave five of 'em to a beggar-child,” 
said the woman. “ I’ve always remembered it. I 
couldn’t make it out at first. I beg pardon, sir, 
but there’s not many young people that notices a 
hungry face in that way, and I’ve thought of it 
many a time. Excuse the liberty, miss, but you 
look rosier and better than you did that day.” 

“ I am better, thank you,” said Sara, “ and—and 
I am happier, and I have come to ask you to do 
something for me.” 

“ Me, miss! ” exclaimed the woman, “ why, bless 
you, yes, miss! What can I do ? ” 

And then Sara made her little proposal, and the 
woman listened to it with an astonished face. 

“ Why, bless me ! ” she said, when she had heard 
it all. “Yes, miss, it’ll be a pleasure to me to do 
it. I am a working woman, myself, and can’t 
afford to do much on my own account, and there’s 
eights of trouble on every side ; but if you’ll ex¬ 
cuse me, I’m bound to say I’ve given many a bit 
3f bread away since that wet afternoon, just along 
o’ thinkin’ of you. An’ how wet an’cold you was, 
an’ how you looked,—an’ yet you give away your 
hot buns as if you was a princess.” 

The Indian Gentleman smiled involuntarily, 
and Sara smiled a little too. “ She looked so 
hungry,” she said. “ She was hungrier than I 
was.” 

“ She was starving,” said the woman. “ Many’s 



“BE DREW HER SMALL DARK HEAD DOWN UPON HIS KNEE 
AND STROKED HER HAIR,” 
















What Happened at Miss Minchiris 83 

the time she’s told me of it since—how she sat 
there in the wet, and felt as if a wolf was a-tear- 
ing at her poor young insides.” 

“ Oh, have you seen her since then ?.” exclaimed 
Sara. “ Do you know where she is ? ” 

“ I know! ” said the woman. “ Why, she’s in 
that there back room now, miss, an’ has been for 
a month, an’ a decent, well-meaning girl she’s 
going to turn out, an’ such a help to me in the 
day shop, an’ in the kitchen, as you’d scarce be¬ 
lieve, knowing how she’s lived.” 

She stepped to the door of the little back parlor 
and spoke; and the next minute a girl came out 
and followed her behind the counter. And ac¬ 
tually it was the beggar-child, clean and neatly 
clothed, and looking as if she had not been hun¬ 
gry for a long time. She looked shy, but she had 
a nice face, now that she was no longer a savage ; 
and the wild look had gone from her eyes. And 
she knew Sara in an instant, and stood and looked 
at her as if she could never look enough. 

“You see,” said the woman, “ I told her to 
come here when she was hungry, and when she’d 
come I’d give her odd jobs to do, an’ I found she 
was willing, an’ somehow I got to like her; an’ 
the end of it was I’ve given her a place an’ a home, 
an’ she helps me, an’ behaves as well, an’ is as 
thankful as a girl can be. Her name’s Anne—she 
has no other.” 


8 4 


Sara Crewe 


The two children stood and looked at each 
other a few moments. In Sara’s eyes a new 
thought was growing. 

“ I’m glad you have such a good home,” she 
said. “ Perhaps Mrs. Brown will let you give 
the buns and bread to the children—perhaps you 
would like to doit—because you know what it is 
to be hungry, too.” 

“Yes, miss,” said the girl. 

And somehow Sara felt as if she understood 
her, though the girl said nothing more, and only 
stood still and looked, and looked after her as she 
went out of the shop and got into the carriage 
and drove away. 


LITTLE SAINT ELIZABETH 





“ THERE she is,” they would CRT. 
















































































































































/ 










dTTLE SAINT ELIZABETH 


SHE had not been brought up in America at 
all. She had been born in France, in a beautiful 
chdteau , and she had been born heiress to a great 
fortune, but, nevertheless, just now she felt as if she 
was very poor, indeed. And yet her home was 
in one of the most splendid houses in New York. 
She had a lovely suite of apartments of her own, 
though she was only eleven years old. She had 
had her own carriage and a saddle horse, a train 
of masters, and governesses, and servants, and 
was regarded by all the children of the neighbor¬ 
hood as a sort of grand and mysterious little 
princess, whose incomings and outgoings were to 
be watched with the greatest interest. 

“ There she is,” they would cry, flying to their 
windows to look at her. “ She is going out in her 
carriage.” “ She is dressed all in black velvet and 
splendid fur.” “ That is her own, own, carriage.” 
“She has millions of money; and she can have 
anything she wants—Jane says so ! ” “ She is 

very pretty, too; but she is so pale and has such 
big, sorrowful, black eyes. I should not be sor- 


88 


Little Saint Elizabeth 


rowful if I were in her place; but Jane says the 
servants say she is always quiet and looks sad.’* 
“ Her maid says she lived with her aunt, and her 
aunt made her too religious.” 

She rarely lifted her large dark eyes to look at 
them with any curiosity. She was not accus¬ 
tomed to the society of children. She had never 
had a child companion in her life, and these little 
Americans, who were so very rosy and gay, and 
who went out to walk or drive with groups of 
brothers and sisters, and even ran in the street, 
laughing and playing and squabbling healthily— 
these children amazed her. 

Poor little Saint Elizabeth ! She had not lived 
a very natural or healthy life herself, and she knew 
absolutely nothing of real childish pleasures. You 
see, it had occurred in this way : When she was 
a baby of two years her young father and mother 
died, within a week of each other, of a terrible 
fever, and the only near relatives the little one 
had were her Aunt Clotilde and Uncle Bertrand. 
Her Aunt Clotilde lived in Normandy—her Uncle 
Bertrand in New York. As these two were her 
only guardians, and as Bertrand de Rochemont 
was a gay bachelor, fond of pleasure and knowing 
nothing of babies, it was natural that he should be 
very willing that his elder sister should undertake 
the rearing and education of the child. 

“ Only,” he wrote to Mademoiselle de Roche* 











Little Saint Elizabeth 91 

mont, “ don't end by training her for an abbess, 
my dear Clotilde.” 

There was a very great difference between these 
two people—the distance between the gray stone 
chateau in Normandy and the brown stone man¬ 
sion in New York was not nearly so great as the 
distance and difference between the two lives. 
And yet it was said that in her first youth Madem¬ 
oiselle de Rochemont had been as gay and fond 
of pleasure as either of her brothers. And then, 
when her life was at its brightest and gayest— 
when she was a beautiful and brilliant young 
woman—she had had a great and bitter sorrow, 
which had changed her for ever. From that time 
she had never left the house in which she had 
been born, and had lived the life of a nun in every¬ 
thing but being enclosed in convent walls. At 
first she had had her parents to take care of, but 
when they died she had been left entirely alone in 
the great chdleau , and devoted herself to prayer 
and works of charity among the villagers and 
country people. 

“ Ah ! she is good—she is a saint Mademoiselle," 
the poor people always said when speaking of her; 
but they also always looked a little awe-stricken 
when she appeared, and never were sorry when 
she left them. 

She was a tall woman, with a pale, rigid, hand¬ 
some face, which never smiled. She did nothing 


92 


Little Saint Elizabeth 


but good deeds, but however grateful her pen¬ 
sioners might be, nobody would ever have dared 
to dream of loving her. She was just and cold 
and severe. She wore always a straight black 
serge gown, broad bands of white linen, and a 
rosary and crucifix at her waist. She read noth¬ 
ing but religious works and legends of the saints 
and martyrs, and adjoining her private apartments 
was a little stone chapel, where the servants said 
she used to kneel on the cold floor before the al¬ 
tar and pray for hours in the middle of the night. 

The little curd of the village, who was plump 
and comfortable, and who had the kindest heart 
and the most cheerful soul in the world, used to 
remonstrate with her, always in a roundabout 
way, however, never quite as if he were referring 
directly to herself. 

“ One must not let one’s self become the stone 
image of goodness,” he said once. “ Since one"is 
really of flesh and blood, and lives among flesh 
and blood, that is not best. No, no; it is not 
best.” 

But Mademoiselle de Rochemont never seemed 
exactly of flesh and blood—she was more like a 
marble female saint who had descended from her 
pedestal to walk upon the earth. 

And she did not change, even when the baby 
Elizabeth was brought to her. She attended 
strictly to the child’s comfort and prayed many 


Little Saint Elizabeth 


93 


prayers for her innocent soul, but it can be scarce¬ 
ly said that her manner was any softer or that 
she smiled more. At first Elizabeth used to 
scream at the sight of the black, nun-like dress 
and the rigid, handsome face, but in course of 
time she became accustomed to them, and, 
through living in an atmosphere so silent and 
without brightness, a few months changed her 
from a laughing, romping baby into a pale, quiet 
child, who rarely made any childish noise at ail. 

In this quiet way she became fond of her aunt. 
She saw little of anyone but the servants, who 
were all trained to quietness also. As soon as 
she was old enough her aunt began her religious 
training. Before she could speak plainly she 
heard legends of saints and stories of martyrs. 
She was taken into the little chapel and taught to 
pray there. She believed in miracles, and would 
not have been surprised at any moment if she had 
met the Child Jesus or the Virgin in the beautiful 
rambling gardens which surrounded the chdteau . 
She was a sensitive, imaginative child, and the 
sacred romances she heard filled all her mind and 
made up her little life. She wished to be a saint 
herself, and spent hours in wandering in the ter¬ 
raced rose gardens wondering if such a thing was 
possible in modern days, and what she must do to 
obtain such holy victory. Her chief sorrow was 
that she knew herself to be delicate and very 


94 


Little Saint Elizaoetk 


timid—so timid that she often suffered when peo¬ 
ple did not suspect it—and she was afraid that she 
was not brave enough to be a martyr. Once, 
poor little one! when she was alone in her room, 
she held her hand over a burning wax candle, but 
the pain was so terrible that she could not keep it 
there. Indeed, she fell back white and faint, and 
sank upon her chair, breathless and in tears, be¬ 
cause she felt sure that she could not chant holy 
songs if she were being burned at the stake. She 
had been vowed to the Virgin in her babyhood, 
and was always dressed in white and blue, but her 
little dress was a small conventual robe, straight 
and narrow cut, of white woollen stuff, and banded 
plainly with blue at the waist. She did not look 
like other children, but she was very sweet and 
gentle, and her pure little pale face and large, 
dark eyes had a lovely dreamy look. When she 
was old enough to visit the poor with her Aunt 
Clotilde — and she was hardly seven years old 
when it was considered proper that she should 
begin—the villagers did not stand in awe of her. 
They began to adore her, almost to worship her, 
as if she had, indeed, been a sacred child. The 
little ones delighted to look at her, to draw near 
her sometimes and touch her soft white and blue 
robe. And, when they did so, she always re¬ 
turned their looks with such a tender, sympathet¬ 
ic smile, and spoke to them in so gentle a voice. 


Little Saint Elizabeth 


95 

that they were in ecstasies. They used to talk 
her over, tell stories about her when they were 
playing together afterwards. 

“The little Mademoiselle,” they said, “she is a 
child saint. I have heard them say so. Some¬ 
times there is a little light round her head. One 
day her little white robe will begin to shine too, 
and her long sleeves will be wings, and she will 
spread them and ascend through the blue sky to 
Paradise. You will see if it is not so.” 

So, in this secluded world in the gray old chd- 
teau , with no companion but her aunt, with no oc¬ 
cupation but her studies and her charities, with 
no thoughts but those of saints and religious ex¬ 
ercises, Elizabeth lived until she was eleven years 
old. Then a great grief befell her. One morn¬ 
ing, Mademoiselle de Rochemont did not leave 
her room at the regular hour. As she never 
broke a rule she had made for herself and her 
household, this occasioned great wonder. Her 
old maid servant waited half an hour—went to 
her door, and took the liberty of listening to hear 
if she was up and moving about her room. There 
was no sound. Old Alice returned, looking quite 
agitated. “Would Mademoiselle Elizabeth mind 
entering to see if all was well? Mademoiselle 
her aunt might be in the chapel.” 

Elizabeth went. Her aunt was not in her room. 
Then she must be in the chapel. The child en- 


96 


Little Saint Elizabeth 


tered the sacred little place. The morning sun 
was streaming in through the stained-glass win¬ 
dows above the altar—a broad ray of mingled 
brilliant colors slanted to the stone floor and 
warmly touched a dark figure lying there. It 
was Aunt Clotilde, who had sunk forward while 
meeling at prayer and had died in the night. 

That was what the doctors said when they 
vere sent for. She had been dead some hours— 
she had died of disease of the heart, and ap¬ 
parently without any pain or knowledge of the 
change coming to her. Her face was serene and 
beautiful, and the rigid look had melted away. 
Someone said she looked like little Mademoiselle 
Elizabeth; and her old servant Alice wept very 
much, and said, “Yes—yes—it was so when she 
was young, before her unhappiness came. She 
had the same beautiful little face, but she was 
more gay, more of the world. Yes, they were 
much alike then.” 

Less than two months from that time Elizabeth 
was living in the home of her Uncle Bertrand, 
in New York. He had come to Normandy for 
her himself, and taken her back with him across 
the Atlantic. She was richer than ever now, as a 
great deal of her Aunt Clotilde’s money had been 
left to her, and Uncle Bertrand was her guardian. 
He was a handsome, elegant, clever man, who, 
having lived long in America and being fond of 



IT WAS AUNT CLOTILDE, WHO HAD SUNK FORWARD WHILE KNEBLING 

AT PRAYER. 













































































Little Saint Elizabeth 


99 


American life, did not appear very much like a 
Frenchman — at least he did not appear so to 
Elizabeth, who had only seen the curt and the 
doctor of the village. Secretly he was very 
much embarrassed at the prospect of taking care 
of a little girl, but family pride, and the fact that 
such a very little girl, who was also such a very 
great heiress, must be taken care of sustained 
him. But when he first saw Elizabeth he could 
not restrain an exclamation of consternation. 

She entered the room, when she was sent for, 
clad in a strange little nun-like robe of black 
serge, made as like her dead aunt’s as possible. 
At her small waist were the rosary and crucifix, 
and in her hand she held a missal she had for¬ 
gotten in her agitation to lay down- 

“ But, my dear child,” exclaimed Uncle Ber¬ 
trand, staring at her aghast. 

He managed to recover himself very quickly, 
and was, in his way, very kind to her; but the 
first thing he did was to send to Paris for a 
fashionable maid and fashionable mourning. 

“ Because, as you will see,” he remarked to 
Alice, “we cannot travel as we are. It is a 
costume for a convent or the stage.” 

Before she took off her little conventual robe, 
Elizabeth went to the village to visit all her 
poor. The curt went with her and shed tears 
himself when the people wept and kissed her 


IOO 


Little Saint Elizabeth 


little hand. When the child returned, she went 
into the chapel and remained there for a long 
time. 

She felt as if she was living in a dream when 
all the old life was left behind and she found her¬ 
self in the big luxurious house in the gay New 
York street. Nothing that could be done for her 
comfort had been left undone. She had several 
beautiful rooms, a wonderful governess, different 
masters to teach her, her own retinue of servants 
as, indeed, has been already said. 

But, secretly, she felt bewildered and almost 
terrified, everything was so new, so strange, so 
noisy, and so brilliant. The dress she wore made 
her feel unlike herself; the books they 'gave her 
were full of pictures and stories of worldly things 
of which she knew nothing. Her carriage was 
brought to the door and she went out with her 
governess, driving round and round the park with 
scores of other people who looked at her curi¬ 
ously, she did not know why. The truth was 
that her refined little face was very beautiful in 
deed, and her soft dark eyes still wore the dreamy 
spiritual look which made her unlike the rest of 
the world. 

“ She looks like a little princess,” she heard her 
uncle say one day. “ She will be some day a 
beautiful, an enchanting woman—her mother was 
so when she died at twenty, but she had been 



Little Saint Elizabeth 


IOI 


brought up differently. This one is a little devo¬ 
tee. I am afraid of her. Her governess tells me 
she rises in the night to pray.” He said it with 
light laughter to some of his gay friends by whom 
he had wished the child to be seen. He did not 
know that his gayety filled her with fear and 
pain. She had been taught to believe gayety 
worldly and sinful, and his whole life was filled 
with it. He had brilliant parties—he did not go 
to church—he had no pensioners—he seemed to 
think of nothing but pleasure. Poor little Saint 
Elizabeth prayed for his soul many an hour when 
he was asleep after a grand dinner or supper 
party. 

He could not possibly have dreamed that there 
was no one of whom she stood in such dread; 
her timidity increased tenfold in his presence. 
When he sent for her and she went into the li¬ 
brary to find him luxurious in his arm chair, a 
novel on his knee, a cigar in his white hand, a 
tolerant, half cynical smile on his handsome mouth, 
she could scarcely answer his questions, and could 
never find courage to tell what she so earnestly 
desired. She had found out early that Aunt Clo- 
tilde and the curt, and the life they had led, had 
only aroused in his mind a half-pitying amuse¬ 
ment. It seemed to her that he did not under¬ 
stand and had strange sacrilegious thoughts about 
them—he did not believe in miracles—he smiled 


102 


Little Saint Elizabeth 


when she spoke of saints. How could she tell 
him that she wished to spend all her money in 
building churches and giving alms to the poor? 
That was what she wished to tell him—that she 
wanted money to send back to the village, that 
she wanted to give it to the poor people she saw 
in the streets, to those who lived in the miserable 
places. 

But when she found herself face to face with 
him and he said some witty thing to her and 
seemed to find her only amusing, all her courage 
failed her. Sometimes she thought she would 
throw herself upon her knees before him and beg 
him to send her back to Normandy—to let her 
live alone in the chdteau as her Aunt Clotilde had 
done. 

One morning she arose very early, and knelt a 
long time before the little altar she had made for 
herself in her dressing room. It was only a 
table with some black velvet thrown over it, a 
crucifix, a saintly image, and some flowers stand¬ 
ing upon it. She had put on, when she got up, 
the quaint black serge robe, because she felt more 
at home in it, and her heart was full of determina¬ 
tion. The night before she had received a letter 
from the curl and it had contained sad news. A 
fever had broken out in her beloved village, the 
vines had done badly, there was sickness among 
the cattle, there was already beginning to be 



THE VILLAGERS DID WOT STAWD IW AWE Of HER* 













































* 




































































- 























. .»• 


















Little Saint Elizabeth 105 

suffering, and if something were not done for the 
people they would not know how to face the win¬ 
ter. In the time of Mademoiselle de Rochemont 
they had always been made comfortable and 
happy at Christmas. What was to be done ? The 
curt ventured to write to Mademoiselle Eliza¬ 
beth. 

The poor child had scarcely slept at all. Her 
dear village! Her dear people! The children 
would be hungry ; the cows would die; there 
would be no fires to warm those who were old. 

“ I must go to uncle,” she said, pale and trem¬ 
bling. “ I must ask him to give me money. I 
am afraid, but it is right to mortify the spirit. 
The martyrs went to the stake. The holy Saint 
Elizabeth was ready to endure anything that she 
might do her duty and help the poor.” 

Because she had been called Elizabeth she had 
thought and read a great deal of the saint whose 
namesake she was—the saintly Elizabeth whose 
husband was so wicked and cruel, and who wished 
to prevent her from doing good deeds. And 
oftenest of all she had read the legend which told 
that one day as Elizabeth went out with a basket 
of food to give to the poor and hungry, she had 
met her savage husband, who had demanded that 
she should tell him what she was carrying, and 
when she replied “ Roses,” and he tore the cover 
from the basket to see if she spoke the truth, * 


io6 Little Saint Elizabeth 

miracle had been performed, and the basket was 
filled with roses, so that she had been saved from 
her husband’s cruelty, and also from telling an 
untruth. To little Elizabeth this legend had been 
beautiful and quite real —it proved that if one 
were doing good, the saints would take care of 
one. Since she had been in her new home, she 
had, half consciously, compared her Uncle Ber¬ 
trand with the wicked Landgrave, though she 
was too gentle and just to think he was really 
cruel, as Saint Elizabeth’s husband had been, only 
he did not care for the poor, and loved only the 
wprld—and surely that was wicked. She had 
been taught that to care for the world at all was 
a fatal sin. 

She did not eat any breakfast. She thought 
she would fast until she had done what she in¬ 
tended to do. It had been her Aunt Clotilde’s 
habit to fast very often. 

She waited anxiously to hear that her Uncle 
Bertrand had left his room. He always rose late, 
and this morning he was later than usual as he 
had had a long gay dinner party the night before. 

It was nearly twelve before she heard his door 
open. Then she went quickly to the staircase. 
Her heart was beating so fast that she put her 
little hand to her side and waited a moment to re¬ 
gain her breath. She felt quite cold. 

“ Perhaps I must wait until he has eaten his 


Little Saint Elizabeth 107 

breakfast,’’ she said. “ Perhaps I must not dis¬ 
turb him yet. It would make him displeased. I 
will wait—yes, for a little while.” 

She did not return to her room, but waited 
upon the stairs. It seemed to be a long time. It 
appeared that a friend breakfasted with him. She 
heard a gentleman come in and recognized his 
voice, which she had heard before. She did not 
know what the gentleman’s name was, but she 
had met him going in and out with her uncle once 
or twice, and had thought he had a kind face 
and kind eyes. He had looked at her in an inter¬ 
ested way when he spoke to her—even as if he 
were a little curious, and she had wondered why 
he did so. 

When the door of the breakfast room opened 
and shut as the servants went in, she could hear 
the two laughing and talking. They seemed to 
be enjoying themselves very much. Once she 
heard an order given for the mail phaeton. 
They were evidently going out as soon as the 
meal was over. 

At last the door opened and they were coming 
out. Elizabeth ran down the stairs and stood in 
a small reception room. Her heart began to beat 
faster than ever. 

“The blessed martyrs were not afraid,” she 
whispered to herself. 

“ Uncle Bertrand ! ” she said, as he approached, 


108 Little Saint Elizabeth 

and she scarcely knew her own faint voice. 
“ Uncle Bertrand-” 

He turned, and seeing her, started, and ex¬ 
claimed, rather impatiently—evidently he was at 
once amazed and displeased to see her. He was 
in a hurry to get out, and the sight of her odd 
little figure, standing in its straight black robe 
between the portteres , the slender hands clasped on 
the breast, the small pale face and great dark 
eyes uplifted, was certainly a surprise to him. 

“ Elizabeth ! ” he said, “ what do you wish ? 
Why do you come downstairs? And that impos¬ 
sible dress! Why do you wear it again ? It is 
not suitable.” 

“ Uncle Bertrand,” said the child, clasping her 
hands still more tightly, her eyes growing larger 
in her excitement and terror under his dis¬ 
pleasure, “ it is that I want money—a great deal. 
I beg your pardon if I derange you. It is for the 
poor. Moreover, the cur/ has written the people 
of the village are ill—the vineyards did not yield 
well. They must have money. I must send them 
some.” 

Uncle Bertrand shrugged his shoulders. 

“ That is the message of monsieur le cur/, is it ? ” 
he said. “ He wants money! My dear Elizabeth, 
I must inquire further. You have a fortune, but I 
cannot permit you to throw it away. You are a 
child, and do not understand-” 



“UNCLE BERTRAND,” SAID THE CHILD, CLASPING HER HANDS. 












































































































































Little Saint Elizabeth III 

“But,” cried Elizabeth, trembling with agita¬ 
tion, “ they are so poor when one does not help 
them : their vineyards are so little, and if the year 
is bad they must starve. Aunt Clotilde gave to 
them every year—even in the good years. She 
said they must be cared for like children.” 

“ That was your Aunt Clotilde’s charity,” re¬ 
plied her uncle. “ Sometimes she was not so wise 
as she was devout. I must know more of this. 
I have no time at present. I am going out of 
town. In a few days I will reflect upon it. Tell 
your maid to give that hideous garment away. 
Go out to drive — amuse yourself — you are too 
pale.” 

Elizabeth looked at his handsome, careless face 
in utter helplessness. This was a matter of life 
and death to her; to him it meant nothing. 

“ But it is winter,” she panted, breathlessly; 
“ there is snow. Soon it will be Christmas, and 
they will have nothing—no candles for the church, 
no little manger for the holy child, nothing for 
the poorest ones. And the children-” 

“ It shall be thought of later,” said Uncle Ber¬ 
trand. “ I am too busy now. Be reasonable, my 
child, and run away. You detain me.” 

He left her with a slight impatient shrug of his 
shoulders and the slight amused smile on his 
lips. She heard him speak to his friend. 

“ She was brought up by one who had renounced 


112 


Little Saint Elizabeth 


the world,” he said, “and she has already re¬ 
nounced it herself — pauvre petite enfant / At 
eleven years she wishes to devote her fortune to 
the poor and herself to the Church.” 

Elizabeth sank back into the shadow of the 
portieres . Great burning tears filled her eyes and 
slipped down her cheeks, falling upon her breast. 

“ He does not care,” she said; “ he does not 
know. And I do no one good—no one.” And 
she covered her face with her hands and stood 
sobbing all alone. 

When she returned to her room she was so pale 
that her maid looked at her anxiously, and spoke 
of it afterwards to the other servants. They were 
all fond of Mademoiselle Elizabeth. She was al¬ 
ways kind and gentle to everybody. 

Nearly all the day she sat, poor little saint! by 
her window looking out at the passers-by in the 
snowy street. But she scarcely saw the people at 
all, her thoughts were far away, in the little vil¬ 
lage where she had always spent her Christmas 
before. Her Aunt Clotilde had allowed her at 
such times to do so much. There had not been 
a house she had not carried some gift to; not a 
child who had been forgotten. And the church 
on Christmas morning had been so beautiful with 
flowers from the hot-houses of the chdteau. It 
was for the church, indeed, that the conserva¬ 
tories were chiefly kept up. Mademoiselle de 


Little Saint Elizabeth 113 

Rochemont would scarcely have permitted her¬ 
self such luxuries. 

But there would not be flowers this year, the 
chdteau was closed ; there were no longer garden¬ 
ers at work, the church would be bare and cold, 
the people would have no gifts, there would be 
no pleasure in the little peasants’ faces. Little 
Saint Elizabeth wrung her slight hands together 
in her lap. 

“Oh,” she cried, “what can I do? And then 
there is the poor here—so many. And I do noth¬ 
ing. The Saints will be angry; they will not in¬ 
tercede for me. I shall be lost! ” 

It was not alone the poor she had left in her 
village who were a grief to her. As she drove 
through the streets she saw now and then hag¬ 
gard faces; and when she had questioned a servant 
who had one day come to her to ask for charity 
for a poor child at the door, she had found that 
in parts of this great, bright city which she had 
not seen, there was said to be cruei want and suf¬ 
fering, as in all great cities. 

“ And it is so cold now,” she thought, “ with 
the snow on the ground.” 

The lamps in the street were just beginning to 
be lighted when her Uncle Bertrand returned. It 
appeared that he had brought back with him the 
gentleman with the kind face. They were to dine 
together, and Uncle Bertrand desired that Mad- 


114 Little Saint Elizabeth 

emoiselle Elizabeth should join them. Evidently 
the journey out of town had been delayed for a 
day at least. There came also another message: 
Monsieur de Rochemont wished Mademoiselle to 
send to him by her maid a certain box of antique 
ornaments which had been given to her by her 
Aunt Clotilde. Elizabeth had known less of the 
value of these jewels than of their beauty. She 
knew they were beautiful, and that they had be¬ 
longed to her Aunt Clotilde in the gay days of her 
triumphs as a beauty and a brilliant and adored 
young woman, but it seemed that they were also 
very curious, and Monsieur de Rochemont wished 
his friend to see them. When Elizabeth went 
downstairs she found them examining them to¬ 
gether. 

“ They must be put somewhere for safe keep¬ 
ing/’ Uncle Bertrand was saying. “ It should 
have been done before. I will attend to it.** 

The gentleman with the kind eyes looked at 
Elizabeth with an interested expression as she 
came into the room. Her slender little figure in 
its black velvet dress, her delicate little face with 
its large soft sad eyes, the gentle gravity of her 
manner made her seem quite unlike other chil¬ 
dren. 

He did not seem simply to find her amusing, as 
her Uncle Bertrand did. She was always con¬ 
scious that behind Uncle Bertrand’s most serious 


Little Saint Elizabeth 115 

expression there was lurking a faint smile as he 
watched her, but this visitor looked at her in a 
different way. He was a doctor, she discovered. 
Dr. Norris, her uncle called him, and Elizabeth 
wondered if perhaps his profession had not made 
him quick of sight and kind. 

She felt that it must be so when she heard him 
talk at dinner. She found that he did a great 
deal of work among the very poor—that he had 
a hospital, where he received little children who 
were ill—who had perhaps met with accidents, 
and could not be taken care of in their wretched 
homes. He spoke most frequently of terrible 
quarters, which he called Five Points; the great¬ 
est poverty and suffering was there. And he 
spoke of it with such eloquent sympathy, that 
even Uncle Bertrand began to listen with in¬ 
terest. 

“ Come,” he said, “ you are a rich, idle fellow, 
De Rochemont, and we want rich, idle fellows to 
come and look into all this and do something for 
us. You must let me take you with me some 
day.” 

“ It would disturb me too much, my good Nor¬ 
ris,” said Uncle Bertrand, with a slight shudder. 
“ I should not enjoy my dinner after it.” 

“ Then go without your dinner,” said Dr. Nor¬ 
ris. “ These people do. You have too many 
dinners. Give up one.” 


ii6 Little Saint Elizabeth 

Uncle Bertrand shrugged his shoulders and 
smiled. 

“ It is Elizabeth who fasts,” he said. " Myself, 
I prefer to dine. And yet, some day, I may have 
the fancy to visit this place with you.” 

Elizabeth could scarcely have been said to dine 
this evening. She could not eat. She sat with 
her large, sad eyes fixed upon Dr. Norris’ face as 
he talked. Every word he uttered sank deep into 
her heart. The want and suffering of which he 
spoke were more terrible than anything she had 
ever heard of—it had been nothing like this in 
the village. Oh! no, no. As she thought of it 
there was such a look in her dark eyes as almost 
startled Dr. Norris several times when he glanced 
at her, but as he did not know the particulars of 
her life with her aunt and the strange training she 
had had, he could not possibly have guessed what 
was going on in her mind, and how much effect 
his stories were having. The beautiful little face 
touched him very much, and the pretty French 
accent with which the child spoke seemed very 
musical to him, and added a great charm to the 
gentle, serious answers she made to the remarks 
he addressed to her. He could not help seeing 
that something had made little Mademoiselle 
Elizabeth a pathetic and singular little creature, 
and he continually wondered what it was. 

“ Do you think she is a happy child ? ” he asked 


Little Saint Elizabeth 117 

Monsieur de Rochemont when they were alone 
together over their cigars and wine. 

“ Happy? ” said Uncle Bertrand, with his light 
smile. “ She has been taught, my friend, that to be 
happy upon earth is a crime. That was my good 
sister’s creed. One must devote one’s self, not to 
happiness, but entirely to good works. I think I 
have told you that she, this little one, desires to 
give all her fortune to the poor. Having heard 
you this evening, she will wish to bestow it upon 
your Five Points.” 

When, having retired from the room with a 
grave and stately little obeisance to her uncle 
and his guest, Elizabeth had gone upstairs, it had 
not been with the intention of going to bed. 
She sent her maid away and knelt before her altar 
for a long time. 

“ The Saints will tell me what to do,” she said. 
“ The good Saints, who are always gracious, they 
will vouchsafe to me some thought which will in¬ 
struct me if I remain long enough at prayer.” 

She remained in prayer a long time. When at 
last she arose from her knees it was long past 
midnight, and she was tired and weak, but the 
thought had not been given to her. 

But just as she laid her head upon her pillow it 
came. The ornaments given to her by her Aunt 
Clotilde somebody would buy them. They were 
her own—it would be right to sell them—to what 


Ii8 Little Saint Elizabeth 

better use could they be put? Was it not what 
Aunt Clotilde would have desired ? Had she not 
told her stories of the good and charitable who 
had sold the clothes from their bodies that the 
miserable might be helped? Yes, it was right. 
These things must be done. All else was vain 
and useless and of the world. But it would re¬ 
quire courage—great courage. To go out alone 
to find a place where the people would buy the 
jewels—perhaps there might be some who would 
not want them. And then when they were sold 
to find this poor and unhappy quarter of which 
her uncle’s guest had spoken, and to give to those 
who needed—all by herself. Ah ! what courage ft 
would require. And then Uncle Bertrand, some 
day he would ask about the ornaments, and dis¬ 
cover all, and his anger might be terrible. No 
one had ever been angry with her; how could 
she bear it. But had not the Saints and Martyrs 
borne everything ? had they not gone to the stake 
and the rack with smiles? She thought of Saint 
Elizabeth and the cruel Landgrave. It could not 
be even so bad as that—but whatever the result 
was it must be borne. 

So at last she slept, and there was upon her 
gentle little face so sweetly sad a look that when 
her maid came to waken her in the morning she 
stood by the bedside for some moments looking 
down upon her pityingly. 


Little Saint Elizabeth 119 

The day seemed very long and sorrowful to the 
poor child. It was full of anxious thoughts and 
plannings. She was so innocent and inexpe¬ 
rienced, so ignorant of all practical things. She 
had decided that it would be best to wait until 
evening before going out, and then to take the 
jewels and try to sell them to some jeweller. She 
did not understand the difficulties that would lie 
in her way, but she felt very timid. 

Her maid had asked permission to go out for 
the evening and Monsieur de Rochemont was to 
dine out, so that she found it possible to leave the 
house without attracting attention. 

As soon as the streets were lighted she took the 
case of ornaments, and going downstairs very 
quietly, let herself out. The servants were din¬ 
ing, and she was seen by none of them. 

When she found herself in the snowy street she 
felt strangely bewildered. She had never been 
out unattended before, and she knew nothing of 
the great busy city. When she turned into the 
more crowded thoroughfares, she saw several 
times that the passers-by glanced at her curiously. 
Her timid look, her foreign air and richly furred 
dress, and the fact that she was a child and alone 
at such an hour, could not fail to attract atten¬ 
tion ; but though she felt confused and troubled 
she went bravely on. It was some time before 
she found a jeweller’s shop, and when she en- 


120 


Little Saint Elizabeth 


tered it the men behind the counter looked at her 
in amazement. But she went to the one nearest 
to her and laid the case of jewels on the counter 
before him. 

“I wish,- sne said, in her soft low voice, and 
with the pretty accent, “ I wish that you should 
buy these.” 

The man stared at her, and at the ornaments, 
and then at her again. 

“ I beg pardon, miss,” he said. 

Elizabeth repeated her request. 

“ I will speak to Mr. Moetyler,” he said, after a 
moment of hesitation. 

He went to the other end of the shop to an 
elderly man who sat behind a desk. After he had 
spoken a few words, the elderly man looked up 
as if surprised; then he glanced at Elizabeth; 
then, after speaking a few more words, he came 
forward. 

“You wish to sell these?” he said, looking at 
the case of jewels with a puzzled expression. 

“ Yes,” Elizabeth answered. 

He bent over the case and took up one orna¬ 
ment after the other and examined them closely. 
After he had done this he looked at the little 
girl's innocent, trustful face, seeming more puz¬ 
zled than before. 

“ Are they your own ? ” he inquired. 

“ Yes, they are mine,” she replied, timidly. 


Little Saint Elizabeth 


121 


il Do you know how much they are worth ? ” 

" I know that they are worth much money/* 
said Elizabeth. “ I have heard it said so.** 

“ Do your friends know that you are going to 
sell them ? ** 

“ No,’* Elizabeth said, a faint color rising in 
her delicate face. “ But it is right that I should 
do it.” 

The man spent a few moments in examining 
them again and, having done so, spoke hesitat- 
ingly. 

“ I am afraid we cannot buy them,” he said. “ It 
would be impossible, unless your friends first gave 
their permission.” 

“ Impossible! ” said Elizabeth, and tears rose in 
her eyes, making them look softer and more wist¬ 
ful than ever. 

“We could not do it,” said the jeweller. “ It is 
out of the question under the circumstances.” 

“ Do you think,” faltered the poor little saint, 
“ do you think that nobody will buy them ? ” 

“ I am afraid not,” was the reply. “ No re¬ 
spectable firm who would pay their real value. If 
you’ll take my advice, young lady, you will take 
them home and consult your friends.” 

He spoke kindly, but Elizabeth was over¬ 
whelmed with disappointment. She did not 
know enough of the world to understand that a 
richly dressed little girl who offered valuable 


122 Little Saint Elizabeth 

jewels for sale at night must be a strange and un¬ 
usual sight. 

When she found herself on the street again, her 
long lashes were heavy with tears. 

“ If no one will buy them,” she said, “ what 
shall I do ? ” 

She walked a long way—so long that she was 
very tired—and offered them at several places, 
but as she chanced to enter only respectable 
shops, the same thing happened each time. She 
was looked at curiously and questioned, but no 
one would buy. 

“They are mine,” she would say. “ It is right 
that 1 should sell them.” But everyone stared 
and seemed puzzled, and in the end refused. 

At last, after much wandering, she found her¬ 
self in a poorer quarter of the city; the streets 
were narrower and dirtier, and the people began 
to look squalid and wretchedly dressed ; there 
were smaller shops and dingy houses. She saw 
unkempt men and women and uncared for little 
children. The poverty of the poor she had seen 
in her own village seemed comfort and luxury by 
contrast. She had never dreamed of anything 
like this. Now and then she felt faint with pain 
and horror. But she went on. 

“ They have no vineyards,” she said to hersell 
“No trees and flowers—it is all dreadful—there is 
nothing. They need help more than the others. 


Little Saint Elizabeth 123 

To let them suffer so, and not to give them char¬ 
ity, would be a great crime.” 

She was so full of grief and excitement that she 
had ceased to notice how everyone looked at her 
—she saw only the wretchedness, and dirt and 
misery. She did not know, poor child! that she 
was surrounded by danger — that she was not 
only in the midst of misery, but of dishonesty and 
crime. She had even forgotten her timidity— 
that it was growing late, and that she was far 
from home, and would not know how to return— 
she did not realize that she had walked so far 
that she was almost exhausted with fatigue. 

She had brought with her all the money she 
possessed. If she could not sell the jewels she 
could, at least, give something to someone in 
want. But she did not know to whom she must 
give first. When she had lived with her Aunt 
Clotilde it had been their habit to visit the peas¬ 
ants in their houses. Must she enter one of these 
houses—these dreadful places with the dark pas¬ 
sages, from which she heard many times riotous 
voices, and even cries, issuing ? 

“ But those who do good must feel no fear,” she 
thought. “ It is only to have courage.” At length 
something happened which caused her to pause 
before one of those places. She heard sounds 
of pitiful moans and sobbing from something 
crouched upon the broken steps. It seemed like 


124 


Little Saint Elizabeth 


a heap of rags, but as she drew near she saw by 
the light of the street lamp opposite that it was a 
woman with her head in her knees, and a wretched 
child on each side of her. The children were 
shivering with cold and making low cries as if 
they were frightened. 

Elizabeth stopped and then ascended the steps. 

“ Why is it that you cry ? ” she asked gently # 
“ Tell me.” 

The woman did not answer at first, but when 
Elizabeth spoke again she lifted her head, and as 
soon as she saw the slender figure in its velvet and 
furs, and the pale, refined little face, she gave a 
great start. 

“ Lord have mercy on yez! ” she said in a hoarse 
voice which sounded almost terrified. “ Who are 
yez, an’ what bees ye dow’ in a place the loike o’ 
this ? ” 

“ I came,” said Elizabeth, “ to see those who are 
poor. I wish to help them. I have great sorrow 
for them. It is right that the rich should help 
those who want. Tell me why you cry, and why 
your little children sit in the cold.” Everybody 
had shown surprise to whom Elizabeth had 
spoken to-night, but no one had stared as this 
woman did. 

“ It’s no place for the loike o’ yez,” she said. 
“ An’ it black noight, an’ men and women wild in 
%e drink; an’ Pat Harrigan insoide bloind an’ 



“WHY IS IT THAT YOU CRY?” SHE ASKED GENTLY. 


































































































































































































































( 













. 



























' 











Little Saint Elizabeth 


127 


mad in liquor, an* it*s turned me an* the children 
out he has to shlape in the snow—an’ not the furst 
toime either. An’ it’s starvin’ we are—starvin’ an* 
no other,” and she dropped her wretched head 
on her knees and began to moan again, and the 
children joined her. 

“ Don’t let yez daddy hear yez,” she said to 
them. “ Whisht now—it’s come out an’ kill yez 
he will.” 

Elizabeth began to feel tremulous and faint. 

“ Is it that they have hunger ? ” she asked. 

“ Not a bite or sup have they had this day, nor 
yesterday,” was the answer. “ The good Saints 
have pity on us.” 

“ Yes,” said Elizabeth, “the good Saints have 
always pity. I will go and get some food—poor 
little ones.” 

She had seen a shop only a few yards away— 
she remembered passing it. Before the woman 
could speak again she was gone. 

“ Yes,” she said, “ I was sent to them—it is the 
answer to my prayer—it was not in vain that I 
asked so long.” 

When she entered the shop the few people who 
were in it stopped what they were doing to stare 
at her as others had done—but she scarcely saw 
that it was so. 

“ Give to me a basket,** she said to the owner of 
the place. “ Put in it some bread and wine—some 


128 


Little Saint Elizabeth 


of the things which are ready to eat. It is for a 
poor woman and her little ones who starve. 0 

There was in the shop among others a red¬ 
faced woman with a cunning look in her eyes. 
She sidled out of the place and was waiting for 
Elizabeth when she came out. 

“ I’m starvin’ too, little lady,” she said. “ There’s 
many of us that way, an’ it’s not often them with 
money care about it. Give me something too,” 
in a wheedling voice. 

Elizabeth looked up at her, her pure ignorant 
eyes full of pity. 

“ I have great sorrows for you,” she said. “ Per¬ 
haps the poor woman will share her food with 
you.” 

“ It’s the money I need,” said the woman. 

“ I have none left,” answered Elizabeth. “ I 
will come again.” 

“ It’s now I want it,” the woman persisted. 
Then she looked covetously at Elizabeth’s velvet 
fur-lined and trimmed cloak. “ That’s a pretty 
cloak you’ve on,” she said. “ You’ve got another, 
I daresay.” 

Suddenly she gave the cloak a pull, but the 
fastening did not give way as she had thought 
it would. 

“ Is it because you are cold that you want it ? * 
said Elizabeth, in her gentle, innocent way. “ I 
will give it to you. Take it.” 


Little Saint Elizabeth 


129 


Had not the holy ones in the legends given 
their garments to the poor? Why should she 
not give her cloak ? 

In an instant it was unclasped and snatched 
away, and the woman was gone. She did not even 
stay long enough to give thanks for the gift, and 
something in her haste and roughness made Eliza¬ 
beth wonder and gave her a moment of tremor. 

She made her way back to the place where the 
other woman and her children had been sitting; 
the cold wind made her shiver, and the basket was 
very heavy for her slender arm. Her strength 
seemed to be giving way. 

As she turned the corner, a great, fierce gust 
of wind swept round it, and caught her breath 
and made her stagger. She thought she was go¬ 
ing to fall; indeed, she would have fallen but that 
one of the tall men who were passing put out his 
arm and caught her. He was a well dressed man, 
in a heavy overcoat; he had gloves on. Eliza¬ 
beth spoke in a faint tone. 

“ I thank you,” she began, when the second man 
uttered a wild exclamation and sprang forward. 

“ Elizabeth ! ” he said, “ Elizabeth ! ” 

Elizabeth looked up and uttered a cry herself. 
It was her Uncle Bertrand who stood before her, 
and his companion, who had saved her from fall¬ 
ing, was Dr. Norris. 

For a moment it seemed as if they were almost 


130 Little Saint Elizabeth 

struck dumb with horror; and then her Uncle 
Bertrand seized her by the arm in such agitation 
that he scarcely seemed himself—not the light, 
satirical, jesting Uncle Bertrand she had known 
at all. 

“ What does it mean ? ” he cried. “ What are 
you doing here, in this horrible place alone ? Do 
you know where it is you have come ? What 
have you in your basket ? Explain! explain ! ” 

The moment of trial had come, and it seemed 
even more terrible than the poor child had imag¬ 
ined. The long strain and exertion had been too 
much for her delicate body. She felt that she 
could bear no more; the cold seemed to have 
struck to her very heart. She looked up at 
Monsieur de Rochemont’s pale, excited face, and 
trembled from head to foot. A strange thought 
flashed into her mind. Saint Elizabeth, of Thurin¬ 
gia— the cruel Landgrave. Perhaps the Saints 
would help her, too, since she was trying to do 
their bidding. Surely, surely it must be so ! 

“ Speak!” repeated Monsieur de Rochemont. 
“Why is this? The basket—what have you in 
it? ” 

“ Roses,” said Elizabeth, “ Roses.” And then 
her strength deserted her—she fell upon her knees 
in the snow—the basket slipped from her arm, 
and the first thing which fell from it was—no, not 
roses,—there had been no miracle wrought—not 



HER STRENGTH DESERTED HER—SHE FELL UPON HER KNEES IN THE SNOW, 

















Little Saint Elizabeth 


133 


roses, but the case of jewels which she had laid 
on the top of the other things that it might be 
the more easily carried. 

“ Roses!” cried Uncle Bertrand. “Is it that 
the child is mad? They are the jewels of my sis¬ 
ter Clotilde.” 

Elizabeth clasped her hands and leaned towards 
Dr. Norris, the tears streaming from her uplifted 
eyes. 

“ Ah! monsieur,” she sobbed, “ you will under¬ 
stand. It was for the poor—they suffer so much. 
If we do not help them our souls will be lost. I 
did not mean to speak falsely. I thought the 

Saints—the Saints-” But her sobs filled her 

throat, and she could not finish. Dr. Norris 
stopped, and took her in his strong arms as if she 
had been a baby. 

“ Quick! ” he said, imperatively; “ we must re¬ 
turn to the carriage, De Rochemont. This is a 
serious matter.” 

Elizabeth clung to him with trembling hands. 

“ But the poor woman who starves ? ” she cried. 
“ The little children—they sit up on the step quite 
neaf ^the food was for them! I pray you give it 
to 

“ Yes, they shall have it,” said the Doctor. 
“Take the basket, De Rochemont—only a few 
doors below.” And it appeared that there was 
something in his voice which seemed to render 


134 Little Saint Elizabeth 

obedience necessary, for Monsieur de Rochemont 
actually did as he was told. 

For a moment Dr. Norris put Elizabeth on her 
feet again, but it was only while he removed his 
overcoat and wrapped it about her slight shiver¬ 
ing body. 

“ You are chilled through, poor child,” he said ; 
“ and you are not strong enough to walk just 
now. You must let me carry you.” 

It was true that a sudden faintness had come 
upon her, and she could not restrain the shudder 
which shook her. It still shook her when she 
was placed in the carriage which the two gentle¬ 
men had thought it wiser to leave in one of the 
more respectable streets when they went to ex¬ 
plore the worse ones together. 

“ What might not have occurred if we had not 
arrived at that instant!” said Uncle Bertrand 
when he got into the carriage. “ As it is who 
knows what illness-” 

“ It will be better to say as little as possible 
now,” said Dr. Norris. 

“ It was for the poor,” said Elizabeth, trembling. 
“ I had prayed to the Saints to tell me what was 
best. I thought I must go. I did not mean to do 
wrong. It was for the poor.” 

And while her Uncle Bertrand regarded her 
with a strangely agitated look, and Dr. Norris 
held her hand between his strong and warm 


Little Saint Elizabeth 


1 35 

ones, the tears rolled down her pure, pale little 
face. 

She did not know until some time after what 
danger she had been in, that the part of the city 
into which she had wandered was the lowest and 
worst, and was in some quarters the home ot 
thieves and criminals of every class. As her Un¬ 
cle Bertrand had said, it was impossible to say 
what terrible thing might have happened if they 
had not met her so soon. It was Dr. Norris who 
explained it all to her as gently and kindly as was 
possible. She had always been fragile, and she 
had caught a severe cold which caused her an ill¬ 
ness of some weeks. It was Dr. Norris who took 
care of her, and it was not long before her timid¬ 
ity was forgotten in her tender and trusting affec¬ 
tion for him. She learned to watch for his com¬ 
ing, and to feel that she was no longer lonely. It 
was through him that her uncle permitted her to 
send to the curt a sum of money large enough to 
do all that was necessary. It was through him 
that the poor woman and her children were 
clothed and fed and protected. When she was 
well enough, he had promised that she should 
help him among his own poor. And through him 
—though she lost none of her sweet sympathy for 
those who suffered—she learned to live a more 
natural and child-like life, and to find that there 
were innocent, natural pleasures to be enjoyed in 


136 


Little Saint Elizabeth 


the world. In time she even ceased to be afraid 
of her Uncle Bertrand, and to be quite happy in 
the great beautiful house. And as for Uncle Ber¬ 
trand himself, he became very fond of her, and 
sometimes even helped her to dispense her char¬ 
ities. He had a light, gay nature, but he was 
kind at heart, and always disliked to see or think 
of suffering. Now and then he would give more 
lavishly than wisely, and then he would say, with 
his habitual graceful shrug of the shoulders— 
“Yes, it appears I am not discreet. Finally, I 
think I must leave my charities to you, my good 
Norris—to you and Little Saint Elizabetho” 


THE 

STORY OF PRINCE FAIRYFOOT 


PREFATORY NOTE 


“The Story of Prince Fairyfoot ” was originally intended to 
be the first of a series, under the general title of “ Stories from the Lost 
Fairy-Book, Re-told by the Child Who Read Them,” concerning which 
Mrs. Burnett relates: 

“ When I was a child of six or seven, I had given to me a book of fairy-stories, of 
which I was very fond. Before it had been in my possession many months, it disap¬ 
peared, and, though since then I have tried repeatedly, both in England and 
America, to find a copy of it, I have never been able to do so. I asked a friend in 
the Congressional Library at Washington—a man whose knowledge of books is al¬ 
most unlimited—to try to learn something about it for me. But even he could find 
no trace of it; and so we concluded it must have been out of print some time. I al¬ 
ways remembered the impression the stories had made on me, and, though most of 
them had become very faint recollections, I frequently told them to children, with 
additions of my own. The story of Fairyfoot I had promised to tell a little girl; and, 
in accordance with the promise, I developed the outline I remembered, introduced 
new characters and conversation, wrote it upon note paper, inclosed it in a decorated 
satin cover, and sent it to her. In the first place, it was re-written merely for her, 
with no intention of publication ; but she was so delighted with it, and read and re¬ 
read it so untiringly, that it occurred to me other children might like to hear it also. 
So I made the plan of developing and re-writing the other stories in like manner, and 
having them published under the title of ‘ Stories from the Lost Fairy-Book, Re-told 
by the Child Who Read Them.’ ” 

The little volume in question Mrs. Burnett afterwards discovered to 
be entitled “ Granny’s Wonderful Chair and the Tales it Told.” 



THE 


STORY OF PRINCE FAIRYFOOT 

PART I 

ONCE upon a time, in the days of the fairies, 
there was in the far west country a kingdom 
which was called by the name of Stumpinghame. 
It was a rather curious country in several ways. 
In the first place, the people who lived there 
thought that Stumpinghame was all the world; 
they thought there was no world at all outside 
Stumpinghame. And they thought that the peo¬ 
ple of Stumpinghame knew everything that could 
possibly be known, and that what they did not 
know was of no consequence at all. 

One idea common in Stumpinghame was really 
very unusual indeed. It was a peculiar taste in 
the matter of feet. In Stumpinghame, the larger 
a person’s feet were, the more beautiful and ele¬ 
gant he or she was considered; and the more 
aristocratic and nobly born a man was, the more 
immense were his feet. Only the very lowest 
and most vulgar persons were ever known to 


140 The Story of Prince Fairy foot 

have small feet. The King’s feet were simply 
huge; so were the Queen’s; so were those of the 
young princes and princesses. It had never oc¬ 
curred to anyone that a member of such a royal 
family could possibly disgrace himself by being 
born with small feet. Well, you may imagine, 
then, what a terrible and humiliating state of af¬ 
fairs arose when there was born into that royal 
family a little son, a prince, whose feet were so 
very small and slender and delicate that they 
would have been considered small even in other 
places than Stumpinghame. Grief and confusion 
seized the entire nation. The Queen fainted six 
times a day ; the King had black rosettes fastened 
upon his crown; all the flags were at half-mast; 
and the court went into the deepest mourning. 
There had been born to Stumpinghame a royal 
prince with small feet, and nobody knew how the 
country could survive it! 

Yet the disgraceful little prince survived it, and 
did not seem to mind at all. He was the prettiest 
and best tempered baby the royal nurse had ever 
seen. But for his small feet, he would have been 
the flower of the family. The royal nurse said to 
herself, and privately told his little royal high¬ 
ness’s chief bottle-washer that she “never see a 
hinfant as took notice so, and sneezed as hintelli- 
gent.” But, of course, the King and Queen could 
see nothing but his little feet, and very soon they 


The Story of Prince Fairy foot 141 

made up their minds to send him away. So one 
day they had him bundled up and carried where 
they thought he might be quite forgotten. They 
sent him to the hut of a swineherd who lived 
deep, deep in a great forest which seemed to end 
nowhere. 

They gave the swineherd some money, and 
some clothes for Fairyfoot, and told him, that if 
he would take care of the child, they would send 
money and clothes every year. As for them¬ 
selves, they only wished to be sure of never see¬ 
ing Fairyfoot again. 

This pleased the swineherd well enough. He 
was poor, and he had a wife and ten children, and 
hundreds of swine to take care of, and he knew 
he could use the little Prince’s money and clothes 
for his own family, and no one would find it out. 
So he let his wife take the little fellow, and as soon 
as the King’s messengers had gone, the woman took 
the royal clothes off the Prince and put on him a 
coarse little nightgown, and gave all his things to 
her own children. But the baby Prince did not 
seem to mind that—he did not seem to mind any¬ 
thing, even though he had no name but Prince 
Fairyfoot, which had been given him in contempt 
by the disgusted courtiers. He grew prettier and 
prettier every day, and long before the time when 
other children begin to walk, he could run about 
on his fairy feet. 


\\2 The Story of Prince Fairyfoot 

The swineherd and his wife did not like him at 
all; in fact, they disliked him because he was so 
much prettier and so much brighter than their 
own clumsy children. And the children did 
not like him, because they were ill natured and 
only liked themselves. 

So as he grew older year by year, the poor 
little Prince was more and more lonely. He had 
no one to play with, and was obliged to be always 
by himself. He dressed only in the coarsest and 
roughest clothes; he seldom had enough to eat, 
and he slept on straw in a loft under the roof of 
the swineherd’s hut. But all this did not prevent 
his being strong and rosy and active. He was as 
fleet as the wind, and he had a voice as sweet as 
a bird’s ; he had lovely sparkling eyes, and bright 
golden hair; and he had so kind a heart that he 
would not have done a wrong or cruel thing for 
the world. As soon as he was big enough, the 
swineherd made him go out into the forest every 
day to take care of the swine. He was obliged 
to keep them together in one place, and if any of 
them ran away into the forest, Prince Fairyfoot 
was beaten. And as the swine were very wild 
and unruly, he was very often beaten, because it 
was almost impossible to keep them from wander¬ 
ing off; and when they ran away, they ran so 
fast, and through places so tangled, that it was 
almost impossible to follow them. 


The Story of Prince Fairy foot 143 

The forest in which he had to spend the long 
days was a very beautiful one, however, and he 
could take pleasure in that. It was a forest so 
great that it was like a world in itself. There 
were in it strange, splendid trees, the branches of 
which interlocked overhead, and when their many 
leaves moved and rustled, it seemed as if they 
were whispering secrets. There were bright, 
swift, strange birds, that flew about in the deep 
golden sunshine, and when they rested on the 
boughs, they, too, seemed telling one another 
secrets. There was a bright, clear brook, with 
water as sparkling and pure as crystal, and with 
shining shells and pebbles of all colours lying in 
the gold and silver sand at the bottom. Prince 
Fairyfoot always thought the brook knew the 
forest’s secret also, and sang it softly to the 
flowers as it ran along. And as for the flowers, 
they were beautiful; they grew as thickly as if 
they had been a carpet, and under them was an¬ 
other carpet of lovely green moss. The trees 
and the birds, and the brook and the flowers 
were Prince Fairyfoot’s friends. He loved them, 
and never was very lonely when he was with 
them ; and if his swine had not run away so often, 
and if the swineherd had not beaten him so much, 
sometimes—indeed, nearly all summer—he would 
have been almost happy. He used to lie on the 
fragrant carpet of flowers and moss and listen to 


144 The Story of Prince Fairy foot 

the soft sound of the running water, and to the 
whispering of the waving leaves, and to the songs 
of the birds; and he would wonder what they 
were saying to one another, and if it were true, 
as the swineherd’s children said, that the great 
forest was full of fairies. And then he would pre¬ 
tend it was true, and would tell himself stories 
about them, and make believe they were his 
friends, and that they came to talk to him and let 
him love them. He wanted to love something or 
somebody, and he had nothing to love—not even 
a little dog. 

One day he was resting under a great green 
tree, feeling really quite happy because every¬ 
thing was so beautiful. He had even made a 
little song to chime in with the brook’s, and he 
was singing it softly and sweetly, when suddenly, 
as he lifted his curly, golden head to look about 
him, he saw that all his swine were gone. He 
sprang to his feet, feeling very much frightened, 
and he whistled and called, but he heard nothing. 
He could not imagine how they had all dis¬ 
appeared so quietly, without making any sound ; 
but not one of them was anywhere to be seen. 
Then his poor little heart began to beat fast with 
trouble and anxiety. He ran here and there ; he 
looked through the bushes and under the trees; 
he ran, and ran, and ran, and called and whistled, 
and searched; but nowhere—nowhere was one of 


The Story of Prince Fairy foot 145 

those swine to be found ! He searched for them 
for hours, going deeper and deeper into the forest 
than he had ever been before. He saw strange 
trees and strange flowers, and heard strange 
sounds : and at last the sun began to go down, and 
he knew he would soon be left in the dark. His 
little feet and legs were scratched with brambles, 
and were so tired that they would scarcely carry 
him ; but he dared not go back to the swineherd’s 
hut without finding the swine. The only com¬ 
fort he had on all the long way was that the little 
brook had run by his side, and sung its song to 
him ; and sometimes he had stopped and bathed 
his hot face in it, and had said, “ Oh, little brook! 
you are so kind to me! You are my friend, I 
know. I would be so lonely without you ! ” 

When at last the sun did go down, Prince Fairy- 
foot had wandered so far that he did not know 
where he was, and he was so tired that he threw 
himself down by the brook, and hid his face in 
the flowery moss, and said, “ Oh, little brook ! I 
am so tired I can go no further; and I can never 
find them! ” 

While he was lying there in despair, he heard 
a sound in the air above him, and looked up to 
see what it was. It sounded like a little bird in 
some trouble. And, surely enough, there was a 
huge hawk darting after a plump little brown 

bird with a red breast. The little bird was utter- 
10 


146 The Story of Prince Fairy foot 

ing sharp frightened cries, and Prince Fairyfoot 
felt so sorry for it that he sprang up and tried to 
drive the hawk away. The little bird saw him at 
once, and straightway flew to him, and Fairyfoot 
covered it with his cap. And then the hawk flew 
away in a great rage. 

When the hawk was gone, Fairyfoot sat down 
again and lifted his cap, expecting, of course, to 
see the brown bird with the red breast. But, in¬ 
stead of a bird, out stepped a little man, not much 
higher than your little finger—a plump little man 
in a brown suit with a bright red vest, and with a 
cocked hat on. 

“ Why,” exclaimed Fairyfoot, “ I’m surprised! ” 

“ So am I,” said the little man, cheerfully. “ I 
never was more surprised in my life, except when 
my great-aunt’s grandmother got into such a 
rage, and changed me into a robin-redbreast. I 
tell you, that surprised me! ” 

“ I should think it might,” said Fairyfoot. 
“ Why did she do it ? ” 

“ Mad,” answered the little man — “that was 
what was the matter with her. She was always 
losing her temper like that, and turning people 
into awkward things, and then being sorry for it, 
*nd not being able to change them back again. 
If you are a fairy, you have to be careful. If 
you’ll believe me, that woman once turned her 
second-cousin’s sister-in-law into a mushroom, and 





“W3Y,” EXCLAIMED FAIRYFOOT, “ I’M SURPRISED J 99 

















































The Story of Prince Fairy foot 149 

somebody picked her, and she was made into cat- 
sup, which is a thing no man likes to have hap¬ 
pen in his family! ” 

“ Of course not,” said Fairyfoot, politely. 

“ The difficulty is,” said the little man, “ that 
some fairies don’t graduate. They learn to turn 
people into things, but they don’t learn how to 
unturn them ; and then, when they get mad in 
their families — you know how it is about getting 
mad in families—there is confusion. Yes, seri¬ 
ously, confusion arises. It arises. That was the 
way with my great-aunt’s grandmother. She was 
not a cultivated old person, and she did not know 
how to unturn people, and now you see the re, 
suit. Quite accidentally I trod on her favorite 
corn ; she got mad and changed me into a robin, 
and regretted it ever afterward. I could only 
become myself again by a kind-hearted person’s 
saving me from a great danger. You are that 
person. Give me your hand.” 

Fairyfoot held out his hand. The little man 
looked at it. 

“ On second thought,” he said, “ I can’t shake 
it—it’s too large. I’ll sit on it, and talk to you.” 

With these words, he hopped upon Fairyfoot’s 
hand, and sat down, smiling and clasping his own 
hands about his tiny knees. 

“ I declare, it’s delightful not to be a robin,” he 
said. “ Had to go about picking up worms, you 


150 The Story of Prince Fairy foot 

know. Disgusting business. I always did hate 
worms. I never ate them myself—I drew the 
line there ; but I had to get them for my family.*' 

Suddenly he began to giggle, and to hug hi? 
knees up tight. 

“ Do you wish to know what I’m laughing at?' 
he asked Fairyfoot. 

“ Yes/’ Fairyfoot answered. 

The little man giggled more than ever. 

“I’m thinking about my wife/* he said—“the 
one I had when I was a robin. A nice rage she’ll 
be in when I don’t come home to-night! She’ll 
have to hustle around and pick up worms for her¬ 
self, and for the children too, and it serves her 
right. She had a temper that would embitter the 
life of a crow, much more a simple robin. I wore 
myself to skin and bone taking care of her and 
her brood, and how I did hate ’em !—bare, squawk¬ 
ing things, always with their throats gaping 
open. They seemed to think a parent’s sole duty 
was to bring worms for them.” 

“ It must have been unpleasant,” said Fairy¬ 
foot. 

“ It was more than that,” said the little man; 
“ it used to make my feathers stand on end. 
There was the nest, too ! Fancy being changed 
into a robin, and being obliged to build a nest at 
a moment’s notice! I never felt so ridiculous in 
my life. How was I to know how to build a 


The Story of Prince Fairy foot 151 

nest! And the worst of it was the way she went 
on about it.” 

“ She! ” said Fairyfoot. 

“Oh, her, you know,” replied the little man, 
ungrammatically, “ my wife. She’d always been 
a robin, and she knew how to build a nest; she 
liked to order me about, too—she was one of that 
kind. But, of course, I wasn’t going to own that 
I didn’t know anything about nest-building. I 
could never have done anything with her in the 
world if I’d let her think she knew as much as I 
did. So I just put things together in a way of my 
own, and built a nest that would have made you 
weep! The bottom fell out of it the first night. 
It nearly killed me.” 

“ Did you fall out, too?” inquired Fairyfoot 

“ Oh, no,” answered the little man. “ I meant 
that it nearly killed me to think the eggs weren’t 
in it at the time.” 

“What did you do about the nest?” asked 
Fairyfoot. 

The little man winked in the most improper 
manner. 

“ Do ? ” he said. “ I got mad, of course, and 
told her that if she hadn’t interfered, it wouldn’t 
have happened ; said it was exactly like a hen to 
fly around giving advice and unsettling one’s 
mind, and then complain if things weren’t right. 
I told her she might build the nest herself, if she 


152 The Story of Prince Fairy foot 

thought she could build a better one. She did it, 
too ! ” And he winked again. 

“ Was it a better one? ” asked Fairyfoot. 

The little man actually winked a third time. 
“ It may surprise you to hear that it was/* he re- 
plied; “ but it didn’t surprise me. By-the-by,” he 
added, with startling suddenness, “what’s your 
name, and what’s the matter with you ? ” 

“ My name is Prince Fairyfoot,” said the boy, 
“ and I have lost my master’s swine.” 

“ My name,” said the little man, “ is Robin 
Goodfellow, and I’ll find them for you.” 

He had a tiny scarlet silk pouch hanging at his 
girdle, and he put his hand into it and drew forth 
the smallest golden whistle you ever saw. 

“ Blow that,” he said, giving it to Fairyfoot, 
“and take care that you don’t swallow it. You 
are such a tremendous creature ! ” 

Fairyfoot took the whistle and put it very deli¬ 
cately to his lips. He blew, and there came from 
it a high, clear sound that seemed to pierce the 
deepest depths of the forest. 

“ Blow again,” commanded Robin Goodfellow. 

Again Prince Fairyfoot blew, and again the 
pure clear sound rang through the trees, and the 
next instant he heard a loud rushing and tramp¬ 
ing and squeaking and grunting, and all the great 
drove of swine came tearing through the bushes 
and formed themselves into a circle and stood 


The Story of Prince Fairy foot 153 

staring at him as if waiting to be told what to do 
next. 

“ Oh, Robin Goodfellow, Robin Goodfellow ! ” 
cried Fairyfoot, “ how grateful I am to you ! ” 

“Not as grateful as I am to you,” said Robin 
Goodfellow. “ But for you I should be disturb¬ 
ing that hawk's digestion at the present moment, 
instead of which, here I am, a respectable fairy 
once more, and my late wife (though I ought not 
to call her that, for goodness knows she was early 
enough hustling me out of my nest before day¬ 
break, with the unpleasant proverb about the 
early bird catching the worm!)—I suppose I 
should say my early wife — is at this juncture a 
widow. Now, where do you live ? ” 

Fairyfoot told him, and told him also about the 
swineherd, and how it happened that, though he 
was a prince, he had to herd swine and live in the 
forest. 

“ Well, well,” said Robin Goodfellow, “ that is 
a disagreeable state of affairs. Perhaps I can 
make it rather easier for you. You see that is a 
fairy whistle.” 

“ I thought so,” said Fairyfoot. 

“Well,” continued Robin Goodfellow, “you 
can always call your swine with it, so you will 
never be beaten again. Now, are you ever 
lonely ? ” 

“Sometimes I am very lonely indeed,” an- 


154 Story of Prince Fairy foot 

swered the Prince. “ No one cares for me, though 
I think the brook is sometimes sorry, and tries to 
tell me things.” 

“ Of course,” said Robin. “ They all like you. 
I’ve heard them say so.” 

“ Oh, have you ? ” cried Fairyfoot, joyfully. 

“Yes; you never throw stones at the birds, or 
break the branches of the trees, or trample on the 
flowers when you can help it.” 

“ The birds sing to me,” said Fairyfoot, “ and 
the trees seem to beckon to me and whisper; and 
when I am very lonely, I lie down in the grass 
and look into the eyes of the flowers and talk 
to them. I would not hurt one of them for all 
the world! ” 

“ Humph ! ” said Robin, “ you are a rather good 
little fellow. Would you like to go to a party ? ” 

“ A party ! ” said Fairyfoot. “ What is that ? ” 

“ This sort of thing,” said Robin; and he 
jumped up and began to dance around and to kick 
up his heels gaily in the palm of Fairyfoot’s hand. 
“ Wine, you know, and cake, and all sorts of fun. 
It begins at twelve to-night, in a place the fairies 
know of, and it lasts until just two minutes and 
three seconds and a half before daylight. Would 
you like to come ? ” 

“ Oh,” cried Fairyfoot, “ I should be so happy 
if I might! ” 

“Well, you may,” said Robin; “I’ll take you. 


The Story of Prince Fairy foot 155 

They’ll be delighted to see any friend of mine, 
I’m a great favourite; of course, you can easily 
imagine that. It was a great blow to them when 
I was changed; such a loss, you know. In fact, 
there were several lady fairies, who—but no mat¬ 
ter.” And he gave a slight cough, and began to 
arrange his necktie with a disgracefully conse¬ 
quential air, though he was trying very hard not 
to look conceited; and while he was endeavouring 
to appear easy and gracefully careless, he began 
accidentally to hum, “ See the Conquering Hero 
Comes,” which was not the right tune under the 
circumstances. 

“ But for you,” he said next, “ I couldn’t have 
given them the relief and pleasure of seeing me 
this evening. And what ecstasy it will be to 
them, to be sure! I shouldn’t be si rprised if it 
broke up the whole thing. They’ll faint so—for 
joy, you know—just at first—that is, the ladies 
will. The men won’t like it at all; and I don’t 
blame ’em. I suppose I shouldn’t like it—to see 
another fellow sweep all before him. That’s what 
I do ; I sweep all before me.” And he waved his 
hand in such a fine large gesture that he over¬ 
balanced himself, and turned a somersault. But 
he jumped up after it quite undisturbed. 

“ You’ll see me do it to-night,” he said, knock¬ 
ing the dents out of his hat—“ sweep all before 
me.” Then he put his hat on, and his hands on his 


156 The Story of Prince Fairy foot 

hips, with a swaggering, man-of-society air. “ I 
say,” he said, “ I’m glad you’re going. I should 
like you to see it.” 

“ And I should like to see it,” replied Fairyfoot. 

“Well,” said Mr. Goodfellow, “you deserve 
4 it, though that’s saying a great deal. You’ve 
restored me to them. But for you, even if I’d 
escaped that hawk, I should have had to spend 
the night in that beastly robin’s nest, crowded 
into a corner by those squawking things, and 
domineered over by her! I wasn’t made for that! 
I’m superior to it. Domestic life doesn’t suit me. 
I was made for society. I adorn it. She never 
appreciated me. She couldn’t soar to it. When 
I think of the way she treated me,” he exclaimed, 
suddenly getting into a rage, “ I’ve a great mind 
to turn back into a robin and peck her head off! ” 

“ Would you like to see her now ? ” asked Fairy- 
foot, innocently. 

Mr. Goodfellow glanced behind him in great 
haste, and suddenly sat down. 

“ No, no! ” he exclaimed in a tremendous hurry ; 
“ by no means! She has no delicacy. And she 
doesn’t deserve to see me. And there’s a violence 
and uncertainty about her movements which is 
annoying beyond anything you can imagine. No ; 
I don’t want to see her! I’ll let her go un¬ 
punished for the present. Perhaps it’s punish¬ 
ment enough for her to be deprived of me. Just 


The Story of Prince Fairy foot 157 

pick up your cap, won’t you ? and if you see any 
birds lying about, throw it at them, robins par¬ 
ticularly.” 

“ I think I must take the swine home, if you’ll 
excuse me,” said Fairyfoot, “ I’m late now.” 

“ Well, let me sit on your shoulder and I’ll go 
with you and show you a short way home,” said 
Goodfellow ; “ I know all about it, so you needn’t 
think about yourself again. In fact, we’ll talk 
about the party. Just blow your whistle, and the 
swine will go ahead.” 

Fairyfoot did so, and the swine rushed through 
the forest before them, and Robin Goodfellow 
perched himself on the Prince’s shoulder, and 
chatted as they went. 

It had taken Fairyfoot hours to reach the place 
where he found Robin, but somehow it seemed to 
him only a very short time before they came to 
the open place near the swineherd’s hut; and the 
path they had walked in had been so pleasant and 
flowery that it had been delightful all the way. 

“Now,” said Robin when they stopped, “if you 
will come here to-night at twelve o’clock, when 
the moon shines under this tree, you will find me 
waiting for you. Now I’m going. Good-bye!” 
And he was gone before the last word was quite 
finished. 

Fairyfoot went towards the hut, driving the 
swine before him, and suddenly he saw the swine- 


158 The Story of Prince Fairy foot 

herd come out of his house, and stand staring 
stupidly at the pigs. He was a very coarse, hid, 
eous man, with bristling yellow hair, and little 
eyes, and a face rather like a pig’s, and he always 
looked stupid, but just now he looked more stu¬ 
pid than ever. He seemed dumb with surprise. 

“ What’s the matter with the swine ? ” he asked 
in his hoarse voice, which was rather piglike* too 

“ I don’t know,” answered Fairyfoot, feeling a 
little alarmed. “ What is the matter with them ?” 

“ They are four times fatter, and five times big, 
ger, and six times cleaner, and seven times heav. 
ier, and eight times handsomer than they were 
when you took them out,” the swineherd said. 

“ I’ve done nothing to them,” said Fairyfoot. 
“ They ran away, but they came back again.” 

The swineherd went lumbering back into the 
hut, and called his wife. 

“ Come and look at the swine,” he said. 

And then the woman came out, and stared first 
at the swine and then at Fairyfoot. 

“ He has been with the fairies,” she said at last 
to her husband; “ or it is because he is a king’s 
son. We must treat him better if he can do won¬ 
ders like that.” 



“WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH THE SWINE?” HE ASKE&, 





















































































.. -t'l,. 











































. 






















PART II 


In went the shepherd’s wife, and she prepared 
quite a good supper for Fairyfoot and gave it to 
him. But Fairyfoot was scarcely hungry at all; 
he was so eager for the night to come, so that he 
might see the fairies. When he went to his loft 
under the roof, he thought at first that he could 
not sleep; but suddenly his hand touched the 
fairy whistle and he fell asleep at once, and did 
not waken again until a moonbeam fell brightly 
upon his face and aroused him. Then he jumped 
up and ran to the hole in the wall to look out, 
and he saw that the hour had come, and the moon 
was so low in the sky that its slanting light had 
crept under the oak-tree. 

He slipped downstairs so lightly that his mas¬ 
ter heard nothing, and then he found himself out 
in the beautiful night with the moonlight so 
bright that it was lighter than daytime. And 
there was Robin Goodfellow waiting for him 
under the tree! He was so finely dressed that, 
for a moment, Fairyfoot scarcely knew him. His 
suit was made out of the purple velvet petals of 
a pansy, which was far finer than any ordinary 

velvet, and he wore plumes and tassels, and a 

ii 


162 The Story of Prince Fairy foot 

ruffle around his neck, and in his belt was thrust 
a tiny sword, not half as big as the finest needle. 

“Take me on your shoulder,” he said to Fairy- 
foot, “and I will show you the way.” 

Fairyfoot took him up, and they went their 
way through the forest. And the strange part 
of it was that though Fairyfoot thought he knew 
all the forest by heart, every path they took was 
new to him, and more beautiful than anything he 
had ever seen before. The moonlight seemed 
i;o grow brighter and purer at every step, and 
the sleeping flowers sweeter and lovelier, and the 
moss greener and thicker. Fairyfoot felt so 
happy and gay i:hi»t he forgot he had ever been 
sad and lonely i is life. 

Robin Goodf w, too, seemed to be in very 
good spirits. T related a great many stories to 
Fairyfoot, and, gularly enough, they were all 
about himself a divers and sundry fairy ladies 
who had been so very much attached to him that 
he scarcely expected' to find them alive at the 
present moment. He felt quite sure they must 
have died of grief in his absence. 

“ I have caused a great deal of trouble in the 
course of my life,” he said, regretfully, shaking 
his head. “ I have sometimes wished I could 
avoid it, but that is impossible. Ahem! When 
my great-aunt’s grandmother rashly and inoppor¬ 
tunely changed me into a robin, I was having a 


The Story of Prince Fairy foot 163 

little flirtation with a little creature who was 
really quite attractive. I might have decided to 
engage myself to her. She was very charming. 
Her name was Gauzita. To-morrow I shall go 
and place flowers on her tomb.” 

“ I thought fairies never died,” said Fairyfoot. 

“ Only on rare occasions, and only from love,” 
answered Robin. “ They needn’t die unless they 
wish to. They have been known to do it through 
love. They frequently wish they hadn’t after* 
ward—in fact, invariably—and then they can 
come to life again. But Gauzita-” 

“ Are you quite sure she is dead ? ” asked Fairy- 
foot. 

“ Sure! ” cried Mr. Goodfellow, in wild indig¬ 
nation, “ why, she hasn’t seen me for a couple of 
years. I’ve moulted twice since last we met. 
I congratulate myself that she didn’t see me 
then,” he added, in a lower voice. “ Of course 
she’s dead,” he added, with solemn emphasis; 
“ as dead as a door nail.” 

Just then Fairyfoot heard some enchanting 
sounds, faint, but clear. They were sounds of 
delicate music and of tiny laughter, like the ring¬ 
ing of fairy bells. 

“ Ah ! ” said Robin Goodfellow, “ there they 
are! But it seems to me they are rather gay, 
considering they have not seen me for so long 
Turn into the path.” 


164 The Story of Prince Fairy foot 

Almost immediately they found themselves in 
a beautiful little dell, filled with moonlight, and 
with glittering stars in the cup of every flower; 
for there were thousands of dewdrops, and every 
dewdrop shone like a star. There were also 
crowds and crowds of tiny men and women, all 
beautiful, all dressed in brilliant, delicate dresses, 
all laughing or dancing or feasting at the little 
tables, which were loaded with every dainty the 
most fastidious fairy could wish for. 

“ Now,” said Robin Goodfellow, “ you shall see 
me sweep all before me. Put me down.” 

Fairyfoot put him down, and stood and watched 
him while he walked forward with a very grand 
manner. He went straight to the gayest and 
largest group he could see. It was a group of 
gentlemen fairies, who were crowding around a 
lily of the valley, on the bent stem of which a 
tiny lady fairy was sitting, airily swaying herself 
to and fro, and laughing and chatting with all her 
admirers at once. 

She seemed to be enjoying herself immensely ; 
indeed, it was disgracefully plain that she was 
having a great deal of fun. One gentleman fairy 
was fanning her, one was holding her programme, 
one had her bouquet, another her little scent 
bottle, and those who had nothing to hold for her 
were scowling furiously at the rest. It was evi¬ 
dent that she was very popular, and that she did 



ALMOST IMMEDIATELY THEY FOUND THEMSELVES IN A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE DELL 








The Story of Prince Fairy foot 167 

not object to it at all; in fact, the way her eyes 
sparkled and danced was distinctly reprehensible. 

“You have engaged to dance the next waltz 
with every one of us! ” said one of her adorers. 
“ How are you going to do it?” 

“ Did I engage to dance with all of you ? ” she 
said, giving her lily stem the sauciest little swing, 
which set all the bells ringing. “Well, I am not 
going to dance it with all.” 

“Not with me?" the admirer with the fan 
whispered in her ear. 

She gave him the most delightful little look, 
just to make him believe she wanted to dance 
with him but really couldn’t. Robin Goodfel- 
low saw her. And then she smiled sweetly upon 
all the rest, every one of them. Robin Goodfel- 
low saw that, too. 

“ I am going to sit here and look at you, and 
let you talk to me,” she said. “ I do so enjoy 
brilliant conversation.” 

All the gentlemen fairies were so much elated 
by this that they began to brighten up, and settle 
their ruffs, and fall into graceful attitudes, and 
think of sparkling things to say; because every 
one of them knew, from the glance of her eyes 
in his direction, that he was one whose conver¬ 
sation was brilliant ; every one knew there 
could be no mistake about its being himself that 
she meant. The way she looked just proved it 


168 The Story of Prince Fairy foot 

Altogether it was more than Robin Goodfellow 
could stand, for it was Gauzita who was deport¬ 
ing herself in this unaccountable manner, swing¬ 
ing on lily stems, and ‘‘going on,” so to speak, 
with several parties at once, in a way to chill the 
blood of any proper young lady fairy — who 
hadn’t any partner at all. It was Gauzita herself. 

He made his way into the very centre of the 
group. 

“Gauzita!” he said. He thought, of course, 
she would drop right off her lily stem; but she 
didn’t. She simply stopped swinging a moment, 
and stared at him. 

“ Gracious ! ” she exclaimed. “ And who are 
you?” 

“ Who am I ? ” cried Mr. Goodfellow, severely. 
“ Don’t you remember me ? ” 

“ No,” she said, coolly; “ I don’t, not in the 
least.” 

Robin Goodfellow almost gasped for breath. 
He had never met with anything so outrageous 
in his life. 

“You don’t remembers?” he cried. “Me! 
Why, it’s impossible! ” 

“ Is it ? ” said Gauzita, with a touch of daintj 
impudence. “ What’s your name ? ” 

Robin Goodfellow was almost paralyzed. Gau¬ 
zita took up a midget of an eyeglass which she 
had dangling from a thread of a gold chain, and 


The Story of Prince Fairy foot 169 

she stuck it in her eye and tilted her impertinent 
little chin and looked him over. Not that she 
was near-sighted—not a bit of it; it was just one 
of her tricks and manners. 

“ Dear me ! ” she said, “ you do look a trifle fa¬ 
miliar. It isn’t, it can’t be, Mr.-, Mr.-,'* 

then she turned to the adorer, who held her fan, 

“ it can’t be Mr.-, the one who was changed 

into a robin, you know,” she said. “ Such a ri¬ 
diculous thing to be changed into! What was 
his name?” 

“ Oh, yes! I know whom you mean. Mr.- 

ah—Goodfellow ! ” said the fairy with the fan. 

“ So it was,” she said, looking Robin over 
again. “ And he has been pecking at trees and 
things, and hopping in and out of nests ever 
since, I suppose. How absurd ! And we have 
been enjoying ourselves so much since he went 
away! I think J never did have so lovely a time 
as I have had during these last two years. I be¬ 
gan to know you,” she added, in a kindly tone, 
“just about the time he went away.” 

“You have been enjoying yourself?” almost 
shrieked Robin Goodfellow. 

“ Well,” said Gauzita, in unexcusable slang, “ I 
must smile.” And she did smile. 

“ And nobody has pined away and died ?” cried 
Robin. 

Ci I haven’t,” said Gauzita, swinging herself and 


170 The Story of Prince Fairy foot 

ringing her bells again. “ I really haven’t had 
time.” 

Robin Goodfellow turned around and rushed 
out of the group. He regarded this as insulting. 
He went back to Fairyfoot in such a hurry that 
he tripped on his sword and fell, and rolled over 
so many times that Fairyfoot had to stop him and 
pick him up. 

“ Is she dead ? ” asked Fairyfoot. 

“ No,” said Robin; “ she isn’t.” 

He sat down on a small mushroom and clasped 
his hands about his knees and looked mad—just 
mad. Angry or indignant wouldn’t express it. 

“ I have a great mind to go and be a misan¬ 
thrope,” he said. 

“ Oh ! I wouldn’t,” said Fairyfoot. He didn’t 
know what a misanthrope was, but he thought it 
must be something unpleasant. 

“Wouldn’t you?” said Robin, looking up at 
him. 

“ No,” answered Fairyfoot. 

“Well,” said Robin, “I guess I won’t. Let’s 
go and have some fun. They are all that way. 
You can’t depend on any of them. Never trust 
one of them. I believe that creature has been 
engaged as much as twice since I left. By a 
singular coincidence,” he added, “ I have been 
married twice myself—but, of course, that’s dif¬ 
ferent. I’m a man, you know, and—well, it’s dif- 


The Story of Prince Fairy foot 1 71 

ferent. We won’t dwell on it. Let’s go and 
dance. But wait a minute first.” He took a little 
bottle from his pocket. 

“ If you remain the size you are,” he continued, 
" you will tread on whole sets of lancers and de¬ 
stroy entire germans. If you drink this, you will 
become as small as we are; and then, when you 
are going home, I will give you something to 
make you large again.” Fairyfoot drank from 
the little flagon, and immediately he felt himself 
growing smaller and smaller until at last he was 
as small as his companion. 

“ Now, come on,” said Robin. 

On they went and joined the fairies, and they 
danced and played fairy games and feasted on 
fairy dainties, and were so gay and happy that 
Fairyfoot was wild with joy. Everybody made 
him welcome and seemed to like him, and the 
lady fairies were simply delightful, especially 
Gauzita, who took a great fancy to him. Just 
before the sun rose, Robin gave him something 
from another flagon, and he grew large again, 
and two minutes and three seconds and a half 
before daylight the ball broke up, and Robin took 
him home and left him, promising to call for him 
the next night. 

Every night throughout the whole summer the 
same thing happened. At midnight he went to 
the fairies* dance; and at two minutes and three 


172 The Story of Prince Fairy foot 

seconds and a half before dawn he came home. 
He was never lonely any more, because all day 
long he could think of what pleasure he would 
have when the night came; and, besides that, all 
the fairies were his friends. But when the sum¬ 
mer was coming to an end, Robin Goodfellow 
said to him : “ This is our last dance—at least it 
will be our last for some time. At this time of 
the year we always go back to our own country, 
and we don’t return until spring.” 

This made Fairyfoot very sad. He did not 
know how he could bear to be left alone again, 
but he knew it could not be helped; so he tried 
to be as cheerful as possible, and he went to the 
final festivities, and enjoyed himself more than 
ever before, and Gauzita gave him a tiny ring for 
a parting gift. But the next night, when Robin 
did not come for him, he felt very lonely indeed, 
and the next day he was so sorrowful that he 
wandered far away into the forest, in the hope of 
finding something to cheer him a little. He 
wandered so far that he became very tired and 
thirsty, and he was just making up his mind to 
go home, when he thought he heard the sound of 
falling water. It seemed to come from behind a 
thicket of climbing roses; and he went towards 
the place and pushed the branches aside a little, 
so that he could look through. What he saw 
was a great surprise to him. Though it was the 


The Story of Prince Fairy foot 173 

end of summer, inside the thicket the roses were 
blooming in thousands all around a pool as clear 
as crystal, into which the sparkling water fell 
from a hole in the rock above. It was the most 
beautiful, clear pool that Fairyfoot had ever seen, 
and he pressed his way through the rose branches, 
and, entering the circle they inclosed, he knelt 
by the water and drank. 

Almost instantly his feeling of sadness left him, 
and he felt quite happy and refreshed. He 
stretched himself on the thick perfumed moss, 
and listened to the tinkling of the water, and it 
was not long before he fell asleep. 

When he awakened the moon was shining, the 
pool sparkled like a silver plaque crusted with 
diamonds, and two nightingales were singing in 
the branches over his head. And the next mo¬ 
ment he found out that he understood their 
language just as plainly as if they had been 
human beings instead of birds. The water with 
which he had quenched his thirst was enchanted, 
and had given him this new power. 

“ Poor boy! ” said one nightingale, “ he looks 
tired ; I wonder where he came from.” 

“ Why, my dear,” said the other, “ is it possible 
you don’t know that he is Prince Fairyfoot? ” 

“ What! ” said the first nightingale—“ the King 
of Stumpinghame’s son, who was born with small 
feet?” 


174 7 he Story of Prince Fairy foot 

“Yes,” said the second. “ And the poor child 
has lived in the forest, keeping the swineherd’s 
pigs ever since. And he is a very nice boy, too— 
never throws stones at birds or robs nests.” 

“ What a pity he doesn’t know about the pool 
where the red berries grow 1 ” said the first night¬ 
ingale. 


PART III 


“What pool—and what red berries?” asked 
the second nightingale. 

“ Why, my dear,” said the first, “ is it possible 
you don’t know about the pool where the red 
berries grow—the pool where the poor, dear Prin¬ 
cess Goldenhair met with her misfortune ? ” 

“ Never heard of it,” said the second nightin¬ 
gale, rather crossly. 

“ Well,” explained the other, “ you have to fol 
low the brook for a day and three-quarters, and 
then take all the paths to the left until you come 
to the pool. It is very ugly and muddy, and 
bushes with red berries on them grow around it.” 

“Well, what of that?” said her companion; 
“and what happened to the Princess Golden- 
hair? ” 

“ Don’t you know that, either?” exclaimed her 
friend. 

“ No.” 

“ Ah ! ” said the first nightingale, “ it was very 
sad. She went out with her father, the King, 
who had a hunting party; and she lost her way, 
and wandered on until she came to the pool. 
Her poor little feet were so hot that she took off 
her gold - embroidered satin slippers, and put 


176 The Story oj Prince Fairy foot 

them into the water-—her feet, not the slippers— 
and the next minute they began to grow and 
grow, and to get larger and larger, until they 
were so immense she could hardly walk at all; 
and though all the physicians in the kingdom 
have tried to make them smaller, nothing can be 
done, and she is perfectly unhappy.” 

“What a pity she doesn’t know about this 
pool!’’said the other bird. “If she just came 
here and bathed them three times in the water, 
they would be smaller and more beautiful than 
ever, and she would be more lovely than she has 
ever been.” 

“ It is a pity,” said her companion; “ but, you 
know, if we once let people know what this water 
will do, we should be overrun with creatures bath¬ 
ing themselves beautiful, and trampling our moss 
and tearing down our rose-trees, and we should 
never have any peace.” 

“ That is true,” agreed the other. 

Very soon after they flew away, and Fairyfoot 
was left alone. He had been so excited while 
they were talking that he had been hardly able to 
lie still. He was so sorry for the Princess Gold- 
enhair, and so glad for himself. Now he could 
find his way to the pool with the red berries, and 
he could bathe his feet in it until they were large 
enough to satisfy Stumpinghame; and he could 
go back to his father’s court, and his parents 


The Story of Prince Fairyfoot 177 

would perhaps be fond of him. But he had so 
good a heart that he could not think of being 
happy himself and letting others remain unhappy, 
when he could help them. So the first thing was 
to find the Princess Goldenhair and tell her about 
the nightingales' fountain. But how was he to 
find her? The nightingales had not told him. 
He was very much troubled, indeed. How was 
he to find her? 

Suddenly, quite suddenly, he thought of the 
ring Gauzita had given him. When she had 
given it to him she had made an odd remark. 

“ When you wish to go anywhere,” she had 
said, “ hold it in your hand, turn around twice 
with closed eyes, and something queer will hap¬ 
pen.” 

He had thought it was one of her little jokes, 
but now it occurred to him that at least he might 
try what would happen. So he rose up, held the 
ring in his hand, closed his eyes, and turned 
around twice. 

What did happen was that he began to walk, 
not very fast, but still passing along as if he were 
moving rapidly. He did not know where he was 
going, but he guessed that the ring did, and that 
if he obeyed it, he should find the Princess Gold¬ 
enhair. He went on and on, not getting in the 
least tired, until about daylight he found himself 
under a great tree, and on the ground beneath it 
12 


178 The Story of Prince Fairy foot 

was spread a delightful breakfast, which he knew 
was for him. He sat down and ate it, and then 
got up again and went on his way once more. 
Before noon he had left the forest behind him, 
and was in a strange country. He knew it was 
not Stumpinghame, because the people had not 
large feet. But they all had sad faces, and once 
or twice, when he passed groups of them who 
were talking, he heard them speak of the Princess 
Goldenhair, as if they were sorry for her and 
could not enjoy themselves while such a misfort¬ 
une rested upon her. 

“ So sweet and lovely and kind a princess! ” 
they said; “ and it really seems as if she would 
never be any better/’ 

The sun was just setting when Fairyfoot came 
in sight of the palace. It was built of white mar¬ 
ble, and had beautiful pleasure-grounds about it, 
but somehow there seemed to be a settled gloom 
in the air. Fairyfoot had entered the great pleas¬ 
ure-garden, and was wondering where it would 
be best to go first, when he saw a lovely white 
fawn, with a golden collar about its neck, come 
bounding over the flower-beds, and he heard, at 
a little distance, a sweet voice, saying, sorrowfully, 
‘‘Come back, my fawn; I cannot run and play 
with you as I once used to. Do not leave me, 
my little friend.” 

And soon from behind the trees came a line of 


The Story of Prince Fairy foot i79 

Deautiful girls, walking two by two, all very 
slowly; and at the head of the line, first of all, 
came the loveliest princess in the world, dressed 
softly in pure white, with a wreath of lilies on her 
long golden hair, which fell almost to the hem of 
her white gown. 

She had so fair and tender a young face, and 
her large, soft eyes, yet looked so sorrowful, that 
Fairyfoot loved her in a moment, and he knelt on 
one knee, taking off his cap and bending his head 
until his own golden hair almost hid his face. 

“ Beautiful Princess Goldenhair, beautiful and 
sweet Princess, may I speak to you ? ” he said. 

The Princess stopped and looked at him, and 
answered him softly. It surprised her to see one 
so poorly dressed kneeling before Tier, in her pal¬ 
ace gardens, among the brilliant flowers ; but she 
always spoke softly to everyone. 

“What is there that I can do for you, my 
friend ? ” she said. 

“ Beautiful Princess,” answered Fairyfoot, 
blushing, “ I hope very much that I may be able 
to do something for you.” 

“ For me! ” she exclaimed. “ Thank you, 
friend ; what is it you can do? Indeed, I need a 
help I am afraid no one can ever give me.” 

“ Gracious and fairest lady,” said Fairyfoot, 
“ it is that help I think—nay, I am sure—that I 
bring to you.” 


180 The Story of Prince Fairy foot 

“ Oh ! ” said the sweet Princess. “ You have a 
kind face and most true eyes, and when I look at 
you—I do not know why it is, but I feel a little 
happier. What is it you would say to me ? ” 

Still kneeling before her, still bending his head 
modestly, and still blushing, Fairyfoot told his 
story. He told her of his own sadness and lone¬ 
liness, and of why he was considered so terrible 
a disgrace to his family. He told her about the 
fountain of the nightingales and what he had 
heard there and how he had journeyed through 
the forests, and beyond it into her own country, 
to find her. And while he told it, her beautiful 
face changed from red to white, and her hands 
closely clasped themselves together. 

“ Oh ! ” she said, when he had finished, “ I know 
that this is true from the kind look in your eyes, 
and I shall be happy again. And how can I 
thank you for being so good to a poor little 
princess whom you had never seen ? ” 

“ Only let me see you happy once more, most 
sweet Princess,” answered Fairyfoot, “ and that 
will be all I desire—only if, perhaps, I might once 
—kiss your hand.” 

She held out her hand to him with so lovely a 
look in her soft eyes that he felt happier than he 
had ever been before, even at the fairy dances. 
This was a different kind of happiness. Her hand 
was as white as a dove’s wing and as soft as a 



FA1RYFOOT LOVED HER IN A MOMENT, AND HE KNELT ONE KNEE. 

































































































































The Story of Prince Fairy foot 183 

dove’s breast. “ Come,” she said, “ let us go at 
once to the King.” 

Within a few minutes the whole palace was 
in an uproar of excitement. Preparations were 
made to go to the fountain of the nightingales 
immediately. Remembering what the birds had 
said about not wishing to be disturbed, Fairyfoot 
asked the King to take only a small party. So 
no one was to go but the King himself, the Prin¬ 
cess, in a covered chair carried by two bearers, 
the Lord High Chamberlain, two Maids of Hon¬ 
our, and Fairyfoot. 

Before morning they were on their way, and 
the day after they reached the thicket of roses, 
and Fairyfoot pushed aside the branches and led 
the way into the dell. 

The Princess Goldenhair sat down upon the 
edge of the pool and put her feet into it. In two 
minutes they began to look smaller. She bathed 
them once, twice, three times, and, as the night¬ 
ingales had said, they became smaller and more 
beautiful than ever. As for the Princess herself, 
she really could not be more beautiful than she 
had been ; but the Lord High Chamberlain, who 
had been an exceedingly ugly old gentleman, 
after washing his face, became so young and 
handsome that the First Maid of Honour im¬ 
mediately fell in love with him. Whereupon 
she washed her face, and became so beautiful 


184 The Story of Prince Fairy foot 

that he fell in love with her, and they were 
engaged upon the spot. 

The Princess could not find any words to tell 
Fairyfoot how grateful she was and how happy. 
She could only look at him again and again with 
her soft, radiant eyes, and again and again give 
him her hand that he might kiss it. 

She was so sweet and gentle that Fairyfoot 
could not bear the thought of leaving her; and 
when the King begged him to return to the pal¬ 
ace with them and live there always, he was more 
glad than I can tell you. To be near this lovely 
Princess, to be her friend, to love and serve her 
and look at her every day, was such happiness 
that he wanted nothing more. But first he wished 
to visit his father and mother and sisters and 
brothers in Stumpinghame! so the King and 
Princess and their attendants went with him to 
the pool where the red berries grew; and after 
he had bathed his feet in the water they were so 
large that Stumpinghame contained nothing like 
them, even the King’s and Queen’s seeming small 
in comparison. And when, a few days later, he 
arrived at the Stumpinghame Palace, attended in 
great state by the magnificent retinue with which 
the father of the Princess Goldenhair had pro¬ 
vided him, he was received with unbounded rapt¬ 
ure by his parents. The King and Queen felt 
that to have a son with feet of such a size was 


The Story of Prince Fairy foot 185 

something to be proud of, indeed. They could 
not admire him sufficiently, although the whole 
country was illuminated, and feasting continued 
throughout his visit. 

But though he was glad to be no more a dis¬ 
grace to his family, it cannot be said that he en¬ 
joyed the size of his feet very much on his own 
account. Indeed, he much preferred being Prince 
Fairyfoot, as fleet as the wind and as light as a 
young deer, and he was quite glad to go to the 
fountain of the nightingales after his visit was at 
an end, and bathe his feet small again, and to re¬ 
turn to the palace of the Princess Goldenhair with 
the soft and tender eyes. There everyone loved 
him, and he loved everyone, and was four times 
as happy as the day is long. 

He loved the Princess more dearly every day, 
and, of course, as soon as they were old enough, 
they were married. And of course, too, they 
used to go in the summer to the forest, and dance 
in the moonlight with the fairies, who adored 
them both. 

When they went to visit Stumpinghame, they 
always bathed their feet in the pool of the red 
berries; and when they returned, they made 
them small again in the fountain of the nightin¬ 
gales. 

They were always great friends with Robin 
Goodfellow, and he was always very confidential 


186 The Story of Prince Fairy foot 

with them about Gauzita, who continued to be as 
pretty and saucy as ever. 

“ Some of these days,” he used to say, severely, 
“ I’ll marry another fairy, and see how she’ll like 
that—to see someone else basking in my society! 
Til get even with her l ” 

But he never did. 


THE PROUD LITTLE GRAIN 
OF WHEAT 



THE PROUD LITTLE GRAIN 
OF WHEAT 


THERE once was a little grain of wheat which 
was very proud indeed. The first thing it re¬ 
membered was being very much crowded and 
jostled by a great many other grains of wheat, all 
living in the same sack in the granary. It was 
quite dark in the sack, and no one could move 
about, and so there was nothing to be done but to 
sit still and talk and think. The proud little grain 
of wheat talked a great deal, but did not think 
quite so much, while its next neighbour thought 
a great deal and only talked when it was asked 
questions it could answer. It used to say that 
when it thought a great deal it could remember 
things which it seemed to have heard a long time 
ago. 

“ What is the use of our staying here so long 
doing nothing, and never being seen by any¬ 
body ? ” the proud little grain once asked. 

“ I don’t know,” the learned grain replied. “ I 
don’t know the answer to that. Ask me another.” 

“ Why can’t I sing like the birds that build 


190 The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 

their nests in the roof? I should like to sing, in- 
stead of sitting here in the dark.” 

“ Because you have no voice,” said the learned 
grain. 

This was a very good answer indeed. 

“ Why didn’t someone give me a voice, then 
—why didn’t they ? ” said the proud little grain, 
getting very cross. 

The learned grain thought for several minutes. 

“ There might be two answers to that,” she said 
at last. “ One might be that nobody had a voice 
to spare, and the other might be that you have 
nowhere to put one if it were given to you.” 

“ Everybody is better off than I am,” said the 
proud little grain. “ The birds can fly and sing, 
the children can play and shout. I am sure I can 
get no rest for their shouting and playing. There 
are two little boys who make enough noise to 
deafen the whole sackful of us.” 

“Ah! I know them,” said the learned grain. 
“ And it’s true they are noisy. Their names are 
Lionel and Vivian. There is a thin place in the 
side of the sack, through which I can see them. 
I would rather stay where I am than have to do 
all they do. They have long yellow hair, and 
when they stand on their heads the straw sticks 
in it and they look very curious. I heard a 
strange thing through listening to them the other 
day.” 


The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 191 

“ What was it? ” asked the proud grain. 

44 They were playing in the straw, and someone 
came in to them—it was a lady who had brought 
them something on a plate. They began to dance 
and shout: * It's cake! It’s cake! Nice little 
mamma for bringing us cake/ And then they 
each sat down with a piece and began to take 
great bites out of it. I shuddered to think of it 
afterward/* 

“ Why?** 

“ Well, you know they are always asking ques¬ 
tions, and they began to ask questions of their 
mamma, who lay down in the straw near them. 
She seemed to be used to it. These are the ques¬ 
tions Vivian asked: 

44 4 Who made the cake ? * 

444 The cook/ 

44 4 Who made the cook ? * 

44 4 God/ 

44 4 What did He make her for?* 

44 4 Why didn’t He make her white?’ 

44 4 Why didn’t He make you black?' 

44 4 Did He cut a hole in heaven and drop me 
through when He made me ?' 

44 4 Why didn’t it hurt me when I tumbled such 
a long way ?' 

44 She said she 4 didn’t know ’ to all but the two 
first, and then he asked two more. 

44 4 What is the cake made of ?' 


192 The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 


“ ‘ Flour, sugar, eggs and butter/ 

“ ‘ What is flour made of ? ’ 

“ It was the answer to that which made me 
shudder/* 

“ What was it ? ” asked the proud grain. 

“ She said it was made of—wheat! I don’t see 
the advantage of being rich-” 

“ Was the cake rich t" asked the proud grain. 

“ Their mother said it was. She said, ‘Don’t 
eat it so fast—it is very rich/ ” 

“ Ah ! ” said the proud grain. “ I should like 
to be rich. It must be very fine to be rich. If I 
am ever made into cake, I mean to be so rich that 
no one will dare to eat me at all.” 

“ Ah ? ” said the learned grain. “ I don’t think 
those boys would be afraid to eat you, however 
rich you were. They are not afraid of rich¬ 
ness.” 

“ They’d be afraid of me before they had done 
with me,” said the proud grain. “ I am not a 
common grain of wheat. Wait until I am made 
into cake. But gracious me! there doesn’t seem 
much prospect of it while we are shut up here. 
How dark and stuffy it is, and how we are 
crowded, and what a stupid lot the other 
grains are! I’m tired of it, I must say.” 

“We are all in the same sack,” said the learned 
grain, very quietly. 

It was a good many days after that, that some- 


The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 193 

thing happened. Quite early in the morning, a 
man and a boy came into the granary, and moved 
the sack of wheat from its place, wakening all 
the grains from their last nap. 

“ What is the matter ? ” said the proud grain. 
“ Who is daring to disturb us?” 

“ Hush! ” whispered the learned grain, in the 
most solemn manner. “ Something is going to 
happen. Something like this happened to some¬ 
body belonging to me long ago. I seem to re¬ 
member it when I think very hard. I seem to re¬ 
member something about one of my family being 
sown.” 

“ What is sown?” demanded the other grain. 

“ It is being thrown into the earth,” began the 
learned grain. 

Oh, what a passion the proud grain got into! 
“ Into the earth ? ” she shrieked out. “ Into the 
common earth ? The earth is nothing but dirt, 
and I am not a common grain of wheat. I won’t 
be sown! I will not be sown! How dare any¬ 
one sow me against my will! I would rather 
stay in the sack.” 

But just as she was saying it, she was thrown 
out with the learned grain and some others into 
another dark place, and carried off by the farmer, 
in spite of her temper; for the farmer could not 
hear her voice at all, and wouldn’t have minded 
if he had, because he knew she was only a grain 


194 The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 

of wheat, and ought to be sown, so that some 
good might come of her. 

Well, she was carrierf out to a large field in the 
pouch which the farmer wore at his belt. The 
field had been ploughed, and there was a sweet 
smell of fresh earth in the air; the sky was a 
deep, deep blue, but the air was cool and the few 
leaves on the trees were brown and dry, and 
looked as if they had been left over from last year. 

“ Ah! ” said the learned grain. “ It was just 
such a day as this when my grandfather, or my 
father, or somebody else related to me, was sown. 
I think I remember that it was called Early 
Spring.” 

“ As for me,” said the proud grain, fiercely, “ I 
should like to see the man who would dare to 
sow me! ” 

At that very moment, the farmer put his big, 
brown hand into the bag and threw her, as she 
thought, at least half a mile from them. 

He had not thrown her so far as that, however, 
and she landed safely in the shadow of a clod of 
rich earth, which the sun had warmed through 
and through. She was quite out of breath and 
very dizzy at first, but in a few seconds she began 
to feel better and could not help looking around, 
in spite of her anger, to see if there was anyone 
near to talk to. But she saw no one, and so be¬ 
gan to scold as usual. 


The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 195 

“ They not only sow me,” she called out, “ but 
they throw me all by myself, where I can have 
no company at all. It is disgraceful.” 

Then she heard a voice from the other side of 
the clod. It was the learned grain, who had 
fallen there when the farmer threw her out of his 
pouch. 

“ Don’t be angry,” it said, “ I am here. Wo 
are all right so far. Perhaps, when they cover 
us with the earth, we shall be even nearer to each 
other than we are now.” 

“ Do you mean to say they will cover us with 
the earth ? ” asked the proud grain. 

“Yes,” was the answer. “And there we shall 
lie in the dark, and the rain will moisten us, and 
the sun will warm us, until we grow larger and 
larger, and at last burst open! ” 

“ Speak for yourself,” said the proud grain; 
“ I shall do no such thing! ” 

But it all happened just as the learned grain 
had said, which showed what a wise grain it was, 
and how much it had found out just by thinking 
hard and remembering all it could. 

Before the day was over, they were covered 
snugly up with the soft, fragrant, brown earth, 
and there they lay day after day. 

One morning, when the proud grain wakened, 
it found itself wet through and through with rain 
which had fallen in the night, and the next day 


196 The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 

the sun shone down and warmed it so that it 
really began to be afraid that it would be obliged 
to grow too large for its skin, which felt a little 
tight for it already. 

It said nothing of this to the learned grain, at 
first, because it was determined not to burst if it 
could help it; but after the same thing had hap¬ 
pened a great many times, it found, one morning, 
that it really was swelling, and it felt obliged to 
tell the learned grain about it. 

“ Well,” it said, pettishly, “ I suppose you will 
be glad to hear that you were right. I am going 
to burst. My skin is so tight now that it doesn’t 
fit me at all, and I know I can’t stand another 
warm shower like the last.” 

“ Oh ! ” said the learned grain, in a quiet way 
(really learned people always have a quiet way), 
“ I knew I was right, or I shouldn’t have said so. 
1 hope you don’t find it, very uncomfortable. I 
think I myself shall burst by to-morrow.” 

“ Of course I find it uncomfortable,” said the 
proud grain. “ Who wouldn’t find it uncomfort¬ 
able, to be two or three sizes too small for one’s 
self! Pouf! Crack ! There I go! I have split 
up all up my right side, and I must say it’s a re¬ 
lief.” 

“Crack! Pouf! so have I,” said the learned 
grain. “ Now we must begin to push up through 
the earth. I am sure my relation did that.” 


The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 197 

“Well, I shouldn’t mind getting out into the 
air. It would be a change at least.” 

So each of them began to push her way 
through the earth as strongly as she could, and, 
sure enough, it was not long before the proud 
grain actually found herself out in the world 
again, breathing the sweet air, under the blue 
sky, across which fleecy white clouds were drift¬ 
ing, and swift-winged, happy birds darting. 

“ It really is a lovely day,” were the first words 
the proud grain said. It couldn’t help it. The 
sunshine was so delightful, and the birds chirped 
and twittered so merrily in the bare branches, 
and, more wonderful than all, the great field was 
brown no longer, but was covered with millions 
of little, fresh green blades, which trembled and 
bent their frail bodies before the light wind. 

“ This is an improvement,” said the proud 
grain. 

Then there was a little stir in the earth beside 
it, and up through the brown mould came the 
learned grain, fresh, bright, green, like the rest. 

“ I told you I was not a common grain of wheat,” 
said the proud one. 

“ You are not a grain of wheat at all now,” said 
the learned one. modestly. “You are a blade of 
wheat, and there are a great many others like 
you.” 

“ See how green lam!” said the proud blade. 


198 The Proud Little Grain of Wheal 

“Yes, you are very green,” said its compan* 
ion. “You will not be so green when you are 
older.” 

The proud grain, which must be called a blade 
now, had plenty of change and company after 
this. It grew taller and taller every day, and 
made a great many new acquaintances as the 
weather grew warmer. These were little gold 
and green beetles living near it, who often passed 
it, and now and then stopped to talk a little about 
their children and their journeys under the soil. 
Birds dropped down from the sky sometimes to 
gossip and twitter of the nests they were building 
in the apple-trees, and the new songs they were 
learning to sing. 

Once, on a very warm day, a great golden but¬ 
terfly, floating by on his large lovely wings, flut¬ 
tered down softly and lit on the proud blade, 
who felt so much prouder when he did it that 
she trembled for joy. 

“ He admires me more than all the rest in the 
field, you see,” it said, haughtily. “ That is be¬ 
cause I am so green.” 

“ If I were you,” said the learned blade, in its 
modest way, “ I believe I would not talk so much 
about being green. People will make such ill- 
natured remarks when one speaks often of one’s 
self.” 

“ I am above such people,” said the proud blade* 


The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 199 

“ I can find nothing more interesting to talk of 
than myself.” 

As time went on, it was delighted to find that 
it grew taller than any other blade in the field, 
and threw out other blades; and at last there 
grew out at the top of its stalk ever so many 
plump, new little grains, all fitting closely to¬ 
gether, and wearing tight little green covers. 

“ Look at me ! ” it said then. “ I am the queen 
of all the wheat. I have a crown.” 

" No,” said its learned companion. “ You are 
now an ear of wheat.” 

And in a short time all the other stalks wore 
the same kind of crown, and it found out that 
the learned blade was right, and that it was only 
an ear, after all. 

And now the weather had grown still warmer 
and the trees were covered with leaves, and the 
birds sang and built their nests in them and laid 
their little blue eggs, and in time, wonderful to 
relate, there came baby birds, that were always 
opening their mouths for food, and crying “ peep, 
peep,” to their fathers and mothers. There were 
more butterflies floating about on their amber and 
purple wings, and the gold and green beetles 
were so busy they had no time to talk. 

“ Well!” said the proud ear of wheat (you re¬ 
member it was an ear by this time) to its com¬ 
panion one day. “You see, you were right 


200 The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 


again. I am not so green as I was. I am turn¬ 
ing yellow—but yellow is the colour of gold, and 
I don’t object to looking like gold.” 

"You will soon be ripe,” said its friend. 

" And what will happen then ? ” 

" The reaping-machine will come and cut you 
down, and other strange things will happen.” 

“ There I make a stand,” said the proud ear. 
" I will not be cut down.” 

But it was just as the wise ear said it would 
be. Not long after a reaping-machine was 
brought and driven back and forth in the fields, 
and down went all the wheat ears before the 
great knives. But it did not hurt the wheat, of 
course, and only the proud ear felt angry. 

“ I am the colour of gold,” it said, “ and yet 
they have dared to cut me down. What will they 
do next, I wonder?” 

What they did next was to bunch it up with 
other wheat and tie it and stack it together, and 
then it was carried in a waggon and laid in the 
barn. 

Then there was a great bustle after a while. 
The farmer’s wife and daughters and her two 
servants began to work as hard as they could. 

"The threshers are coming,” they said, "and 
we must make plenty of things for them to eat.” 

So they made pies and cakes and bread until 
their cupboards were full; and surely enough the 


The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 201 

threshers did come with the threshing-machine, 
which was painted red, and went “Puff! puff! 
puff! rattle! rattle!” all the time. And the 
proud wheat was threshed out by it, and found 
itself in grains again and very much out of 
breath. 

“ I look almost as I was at first,” it said; " only 
there are so many of me. I am grander than 
ever now. I was only one grain of wheat at first, 
and now I am at least fifty.” 

When it was put into a sack, it managed to get 
all its grains together in one place, so that it 
might feel as grand as possible. It was so proud 
that it felt grand, however much it was knocked 
about. 

It did not lie in the sack very long this time 
before something else happened. One morning 
it heard the farmer’s wife saying to the coloured 
boy: 

“Take this yere sack of wheat to the mill, 
Jerry. I want to try it when I make that thar 
cake for the boarders. Them two children 
from Washington city are powerful hands for 
cake.” 

So Jerry lifted the sack up and threw it over 
his shoulder, and carried it out into the spring, 
waggon. 

“ Now we are going to travel,” said the proud 
wheat. “ Don’t let us be separated.” 


202 The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 

At that minute, there were heard two young 
voices, shouting:— 

“ Jerry, take us in the waggon ! Let us go to 
mill, Jerry. We want to go to mill.” 

And these were the very two boys who had 
played in the granary and made so much noise 
the summer before. They had grown a little 
bigger, and their yellow hair was longer, but they 
looked just as they used to, with their strong 
little legs and big brown eyes, and their sailor 
hats set so far back on their heads that it was a 
wonder they stayed on. And gracious! how they 
shouted and ran. 

“ What does yer mar say ? ” asked Jerry. 

“Says we can go!” shouted both at once, as 
if Jerry had been deaf, which he wasn’t at all— 
quite the contrary. 

So Jerry, who was very good-natured, lifted 
them in, and cracked his whip, and the horses 
started off. It was a long ride to the mill, but 
Lionel and Vivian were not too tired to shout 
again when they reached it. They shouted at 
sight of the creek and the big wheel turning 
round and round slowly, with the water dashing 
and pouring and foaming over it. 

“ What turns the wheel ? ” asked Vivian. 

“ The water, honey,” said Jerry. 

“ What turns the water ? ” 

“Well now, honey,” said Jerry, “you hev me 


The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 203 

thar. I don’t know nuffin ’bout it. Lors-a-massy, 
what a boy you is fur axin dif’cult questions.” 

Then he carried the sack in to the miller, and 
said he would wait until the wheat was ground. 

“ Ground ! ” said the proud wheat. “We are 
going to be ground. I hope it is agreeable. Let 
us keep close together.” 

They did keep close together, but it wasn’t 
very agreeable to be poured into a hopper and 
then crushed into fine powder between two big 
stones. 

“ Makes nice flour,” said the miller, rubbing it 
between his fingers. 

“ Flour!” said the wheat—which was wheat no 
longer. “ Now I am flour, and I am finer than 
ever. How white I am! I really would rather 
be white than green or gold colour. I wonder 
where the learned grain is, and if it is as fine and 
white as I am ? ” 

But the learned grain and her family had been 
laid away in the granary for seed wheat. 

Before the waggon reached the house again, the 
two boys were fast asleep in the bottom of it, and 
had to be helped out just as the sack was, and 
carried in. 

The sack was taken into the kitchen at once 
and opened, and even in its wheat days the flour 
had never been so proud as it was when it heard 
the farmer’s wife say— 


204 The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 

“ I’m going to make this into cake.” 

“ Ah! ” it said; “ I thought so. Now I shall 
be rich, and admired by everybody.” 

The farmer’s wife then took some of it out in a 
large white bowl, and after that she busied her¬ 
self beating eggs and sugar and butter all to¬ 
gether in another bowl: and after a while she 
took the flour and beat it in also. 

“ Now I am in grand company,” said the flour. 
“ The eggs and butter are the colour of gold, the 
sugar is like silver or diamonds. This is the 
very society for me.” 

“ The cake looks rich,” said one of the daugh¬ 
ters. 

“ It’s rather too rich for them children,” said 
her mother. “ But Lawsey, I dunno, neither. 
Nothin’ don’t hurt ’em. I reckon they could eat 
a panel of rail fence and come to no harm.” 

“ I’m rich,” said the flour to itself. “ That is 
just what I intended from the first. I am rich 
and I am a cake.” 

Just then, a pair of big brown eyes came and 
peeped into it. They belonged to a round little 
head with a mass of tangled curls all over it— 
they belonged to Vivian. 

“ What’s that ? ” he asked. 

“ Cake.” 

“ Who made it?” 

“ I did.” 


The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 205 

“ I like you,” said Vivian. “ You’re such a nice 
woman. Who’s going to eat any of it? Is 
Lionel ? ” 

“ I’m afraid it’s too rich for boys,” said the 
woman, but she laughed and kissed him. 

“ No,” said Vivian. “ I’m afraid it isn’t.” 

“ I shall be much too rich,” said the cake, 
angrily. “ Boys, indeed. I was made for some¬ 
thing better than boys.” 

After that, it was poured into a cake-mould, 
and put into the oven, where it had rather an un¬ 
pleasant time of it. It was so hot in there that if 
the farmer’s wife had not watched it carefully, it 
would have been burned. 

“ But I am cake,” it said, “ and of the richest 
kind, so I can bear it, even if it is uncomfortable.” 

When it was taken out, it really was cake, and 
it felt as if it was quite satisfied. Everyone who 
came into the kitchen and saw it, said— 

“ Oh, what a nice cake ! How well your new 
flour has done! ” 

But just once, while it was cooling, it had a 
curious, disagreeable feeling. It found, all at 
once, that the two boys, Lionel and Vivian, had 
come quietly into the kitchen and stood near the 
table, looking at the cake with their great eyes 
wide open and their little red mouths open, too. 

“ Dear me,” it said. “ How nervous I feel— 
actually nervous. What great eyes they have. 


206 The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 

and how they shine! and what are those sharp 
white things in their mouths ? I really don’t like 
them to look at me in that way. It seems like 
something personal. I wish the farmer’s wife 
would come.” 

Such a chill ran over it, that it was quite cool 
when the woman came in, and she put it away in 
the cupboard on a plate. 

But, that very afternoon, she took it out again 
and set it on the table on a glass cake-stand. She 
put some leaves around it to make it look nice, 
and it noticed there were a great many other 
things on the table, and they all looked fresh and 
bright. 

“ This is all in my honour,” it said. “ They 
know I am rich.” 

Then several people came in and took chairs 
around the table. 

“ They all come to sit and look at me,” said the 
vain cake. “ I wish the learned grain could see 
me now.” 

There was a little high-chair on each side of the 
table, and at first these were empty, but in a few 
minutes the door opened and in came the two 
little boys. They had pretty, clean dresses on, 
and their “ bangs ” and curls were bright with be¬ 
ing brushed. 

“ Even they have been dressed up to do me 
honour,” thought the cake. 





“THERE’S THE CAKE,” HE SAID. 


— 



























































































































































































































































































































































The Proud Little Grain of Wheat 209 

But, the next minute, it began to feel quite 
nervous again. Vivian’s chair was near the glass 
stand, and when he had climbed up and seated 
himself, he put one elbow on the table and rested 
his fat chin on his fat hand, and fixing his eyes on 
the cake, sat and stared at it in such an unnatu¬ 
rally quiet manner for some seconds, that any cake 
might well have felt nervous. 

“ There’s the cake,” he said, at last, in such a 
deeply thoughtful voice that the cake felt faint 
with anger. 

Then a remarkable thing happened. Some one 
drew the stand toward them and took the knife 
and cut out a large slice of the cake. 

“ Go away,” said the cake, though no one heard 
it. “ I am cake l I am rich! I am not for boys! 
How dare you?” 

Vivian stretched out his hand; he took the 
slice; he lifted it up, and then the cake saw his 
red mouth open—yes, open wider than it could 
have believed possible—wide enough to show two 
dreadful rows of little sharp white things. 

“ Good gra-” it began. 

But it never said “ cious.” Never at all. For 
in two minutes Vivian had eaten it!! 

And there was an end of its airs and graces. 






I f 











BEHIND THE WHITE BRICK 









BEHIND THE WHITE BRICK 


IT began with Aunt Hetty’s being out of tem- 
per, which, it must be confessed, was nothing 
new. At its best, Aunt Hetty’s temper was none 
of the most charming, and this morning it was at 
its worst. She had awakened to the conscious¬ 
ness of having a hard day’s work before her, and 
she had awakened late, and so everything had 
gone wrong from the first. There was a sharp 
ring in her voice when she came to Jem’s bed¬ 
room door and called out, “Jemima, get up this 
minute! ” 

Jem knew what to expect when Aunt Hetty be¬ 
gan a day by calling her “Jemima.” It was one 
of the poor child’s grievances that she had been 
given such an ugly name. In all the books she 
had read, and she had read a great many, Jem 
never had met a heroine who was called Jemima. 
But it had been her mother’s favorite sister’s 
name, and so it had fallen to her lot. Her mother 
always called her “Jem,” or “ Mimi,” which was 
much prettier, and even Aunt Hetty only reserved 
Jemima for unpleasant state occasions. 


214 


Behind the White Brick 


It was a dreadful day to Jem. Her mother was 
not at home, and would not be until night. She 
had been called away unexpectedly, and had been 
obliged to leave Jem and the baby to Aunt Het¬ 
ty’s mercies. 

So Jem found herself busy enough. Scarcely 
had she finished doing one thing, when Aunt 
Hetty told her to begin another. She wiped 
dishes and picked fruit and attended to the baby; 
and when baby had gone to sleep, and everything 
else seemed disposed of, for a time, at least, she 
was so tired that she was glad to sit down. 

And then she thought of the book she had been 
reading the night before — a certain delightful 
story book, about a little girl whose name was 
Flora, and who was so happy and rich and pretty 
and good that Jem had likened her to the little 
princesses one reads about, to whose christening 
feast every fairy brings a gift. 

“ I shall have time to finish my chapter before 
dinner-time comes,” said Jem, and she sat down 
snugly in one corner of the wide, old fashioned 
fireplace. 

But she had not read more than two pages be¬ 
fore something dreadful happened. Aunt Hetty 
came into the room in a great hurry—in such a 
hurry, indeed, that she caught her foot in the 
matting and fell, striking her elbow sharply 
against a chair, which so upset her temper that 


Behind the White Brick 215 

the moment she found herself on her feet she flew 
at Jem. 

“What!” she said, snatching the book from 
her, “ reading again, when I am running all over 
the house for you?” And she flung the pretty 
little blue covered volume into the fire. 

Jem sprang to rescue it with a cry, but it was 
impossible to reach it; it had fallen into a great 
hollow of red coal, and the blaze caught it at 
once. 

“ You are a wicked woman ! ” cried Jem, in a 
dreadful passion, to Aunt Hetty. “You are a 
wicked woman.” 

Then matters reached a climax. Aunt Hetty 
boxed her ears, pushed her back on her little foot¬ 
stool, and walked out of the room. 

Jem hid her face on her arms and cried as if 
her heart would break. She cried until her eyes 
were heavy, and she thought she would be obliged 
to go to sleep. But just as she was thinking of 
going to sleep, something fell down the chimney 
and made her look up. It was a piece of mortar, 
and it brought a good deal of soot with it. She 
bent forward and looked up to see where it had 
come from. The chimney was so very wide that 
this was easy enough. She could see where the 
mortar had fallen from the side and left a white 
patch. 

“ How white it looks against the black! ” said 


2i 6 Behind the White Brick 

Jem; “it is like a white brick among the black 
ones. What a queer place a chimney is! I can 
see a bit of the blue sky, I think.” 

And then a funny thought came into her fanci¬ 
ful little head. What a many things were burned 
in the big fireplace and vanished in smoke or 
tinder up the chimney! Where did everything 
go? There was Flora, for instance—Flora who 
was represented on the frontispiece—with lovely, 
soft, flowing hair, and a little fringe on her pretty 
round forehead, crowned with a circlet of dais¬ 
ies, and a laugh in her wide - awake round eyes. 
Where was she by this time? Certainly there 
was nothing left of her in the fire. Jem almost 
began to cry again at the thought. 

“ It was too bad,” she said. “ She was so pretty 
and funny, and I did like her so.” 

I daresay it scarcely will be credited by unbe¬ 
lieving people when I tell them what happened 
next, it was such a very singular thing, indeed. 

Jem felt herself gradually lifted off her little 
footstool. 

“ Oh ! ” she said, timidly, “ I feel very light.” 
She did feel light, indeed. She felt so light that 
she was sure she was rising gently in the air. 

“ Oh,” she said again, “ how—how very light I 
feel! Oh, dear, I’m going up the chimney ! ” 

It was rather strange that she never thought of 
calling for help, but she did not. She was not 


Behind the White Brick 217 

easily frightened ; and now she was only wonder¬ 
fully astonished, as she remembered afterwards. 
She shut her eyes tight and gave a little gasp. 

“ I’ve heard Aunt Hetty talk about the draught 
drawing things up the chimney, but I never knew 
it was as strong as this,” she said. 

She went up, up, up, quietly and steadily, and 
without any uncomfortable feeling at all; and 
then all at once she stopped, feeling that her feet 
rested against something solid. She opened her 
eyes and looked about her, and there she was, 
standing right opposite the white brick, her feet 
on a tiny ledge. 

“ Well,” she s$>id, “this is funny.” 

But the next thing that happened was funnier 
still. She found that, without thinking what she 
was doing, she was knocking on the white brick 
with her knuckles, as if it was a door and she 
expected somebody to open it. The next minute 
she heard footsteps, and then a sound, as if some 
one was drawing back a little bolt. 

“It is a door,” said Jem, “and somebody is 
going to open it.” 

The white brick moved a little, and some more 
mortar and soot fell; then the brick moved a little 
more, and then it slid aside and left an open 
space. 

“It’s a room!” cried Jem. “There’s a room 
behind it! ” 


218 Behind the White Brick 

And so there was, and before the open space 
stood a pretty little girl, with long lovely hair 
and a fringe on her forehead. Jem clasped her 
hands in amazement. It was Flora herself, as she 
looked in the picture, and Flora stood laughing 
and nodding. 

“ Come in,” she said. “ I thought it was you.” 

“ But how can I come in through such a little 
place ? ” asked Jem. 

“ Oh, that is easy enough,” said Flora. “ Here, 
give me your hand.” 

Jem did as she told her, and found that it was 
easy enough. In an instant she had passed 
through the opening, the white brick had gone 
back to its place, and she was standing by Flora’s 
side in a large room—the nicest room she had 
ever seen. It was big and lofty and light, and 
there were all kinds of delightful things in it— 
books and flowers and playthings and pictures, 
and in one corner a great cage full of love¬ 
birds. 

“ Have I ever seen it before ? ” asked Jem, 
glancing slowly round. 

“Yes,” said Flora; “you saw it last night—in 
your mind. Don’t you remember it ? ” 

Jem shook her head. 

“ I feel as if I did, but-” 

“ Why,” said Flora, laughing, “ it’s my room* 
the one you read about last night.” 


Behind the White Brick 219 

“ So it is,” said Jem. " But how did you come 
here ? ” 

“ I can’t tell you that; I myself don’t know. 
But I am here, and so”—rather mysteriously— 
" are a great many other things.” 

;< Are they?’’said Jem, very much interested. 
"What things? Burned things? I was just 
wondering-” 

“ Not only burned things,” said Flora, nodding. 
"Just come with me and I’ll show you some¬ 
thing.” 

She led the way out of the room and down a 
little passage with several doors in each side of it, 
and she opened one door and showed Jem what 
was on the other side of it. That was a room, 
too, and this time it was funny as well as pretty. 
Both floor and walls were padded with rose color, 
and the floor was strewn with toys. There were 
big soft balls, rattles, horses, woolly dogs, and a 
doll or so ; there was one low cushioned chair and 
a low table. 

if You can come in,” said a shrill little voice be¬ 
hind the door, “ only mind you don’t tread on 
things.” 

" What a funny little voice! ” said Jem, but 
she had no sooner said it than she jumped 
back. 

The owner of the voice, who had just come for¬ 
ward, was no other than Baby. 


220 Behind the White Brick 

“Why,” exclaimed Jem, beginning to feel 
frightened, “ I left you fast asleep in your crib.” 

“ Did you ? ” said Baby, somewhat scornfully. 
‘'That’s just the way with you grown-up peo¬ 
ple. You think you know everything, and yet 
you haven’t discretion enough to know when 
a pin is sticking into one. You’d know soon 
enough if you had one sticking into your own 
back.” 

“ But I’m not grown up,” stammered Jem; 
“ and when you are at home you can neither walk 
nor talk. You’re not six months old.” 

“Well, miss,” retorted Baby, whose wrongs 
seemed to have soured her disposition somewhat, 
“ you have no need to throw that in my teeth; 
you were not six months old, either, when you 
were my age.” 

Jem could not help laughing. 

“You haven’t got any teeth,” she said. 

“ Haven’t I ? ” said Baby, and she displayed 
two beautiful rows with some haughtiness of 
manner. “ When I am up here,” she said, “ I am 
supplied with the modern conveniences, and 
that’s why I never complain. Do I ever cry 
when I am asleep? It’s not falling asleep I object 
to, it’s falling awake.” 

“ Wait a minute,” said Jem. “ Are you asleep 
now ? ” 

“ I’m what you call asleep. I can only come 


Behind the White Brick 


221 


here when I’m what you call asleep. Asleep, in¬ 
deed/ It’s no wonder we always cry when we 
have to fall awake.” 

“ But we don’t mean to be unkind to you,” pro¬ 
tested Jem, meekly. 

She could not help thinking Baby was very 
severe. 

“ Don’t mean ! ” said Baby. “Well, why don’t 
you think more, then? How would you like to 
have all the nice things snatched away from you, 
and all the old rubbish packed off on you, as if 
you hadn’t any sense ? How would you like to 
have to sit and stare at things you wanted, and 
not to be able to reach them, or, if you did reach 
them, have them fall out of your hand, and roll 
away in the most unfeeling manner ? And then 
be scolded and called ‘ cross ! * It’s no wonder 
we are bald. You’d be bald yourself. It’s trouble 
and worry that keep us bald until we can begin to 
take care of ourselves; I had more hair than this 
at first, but it fell off, as well it might. No phi¬ 
losopher ever thought of that, I suppose! ” 

“Well,” said Jem, in despair, “ I hope you en¬ 
joy yourself when you are here ? ” 

“Yes, I do,” answered Baby. “That’s one 
comfort. There is nothing to knock my head 
against, and things have patent stoppers on them, 
so that they can’t roll away, and everything is 
soft and easy to pick up.” 


222 


Behind the White Brick 


There was a slight pause after this, and Baby 
seemed to cool down. 

“ I suppose you would like me to show you 
round ? ” she said. 

“Not if you have any objection,” replied Jem, 
who was rather subdued. 

“ I would as soon do it as not,” said Baby. 
“You are not as bad as some people, though you 
do get my clothes twisted when you hold me.” 

Upon the whole, she seemed rather proud of 
her position. It was evident she quite regarded 
herself as hostess. She held her small bald head 
very high indeed, as she trotted on before them. 
She stopped at the first door she came to, and 
knocked three times. She was obliged to stand 
upon tiptoe to reach the knocker. 

“ He’s sure to be at home at this time of year,” 
she remarked. “ This is the busy season.” 

“ Who’s ‘ he ’ ? ” inquired Jem. 

But Flora only laughed at Miss Baby’s conse¬ 
quential air. 

“S. C., to be sure,” was the answer, as the 
young lady pointed to the door-plate, upon which 
Jem noticed, for the first time, “ S. C.” in ver}^ 
large letters. 

The door opened, apparently without assist¬ 
ance, and they entered the apartment. 

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Jem, the next 
minute. “ Goodness gracious! ” 


Behind the White Brick 


223 


She might well be astonished. It was such a 
long room that she could not see to the end of it, 
and it was piled up from floor to ceiling with toys 
of every description, and there was such bustle 
and buzzing in it that it was quite confusing. 
The bustle and buzzing arose from a very curious 
cause, too,—it was the bustle and buzz of hun¬ 
dreds of tiny men and women who were working 
at little tables no higher than mushrooms,—the 
pretty tiny women cutting out and sewing, the 
pretty tiny men sawing and hammering and all 
talking at once. The principal person in the 
place escaped Jem’s notice at first; but it was 
not long before she saw him,—a little old gentle¬ 
man, with a rosy face and sparkling eyes, sitting 
at a desk, and writing in a book almost as big as 
himself. He was so busy that he was quite ex¬ 
cited, and had been obliged to throw his white 
fur coat and cap aside, and he was at work in his 
red waistcoat. 

“ Look here, if you please,” piped Baby. “ I 
have brought some one to see you.” 

When he turned round, Jem recognized him at 
once. 

“Eh! Eh!” he said. “What! What! Who’s 
this, Tootsicums?” 

Baby’s manner became very acid indeed. 

“ I shouldn’t have thought you would have said 
that, Mr. Claus,” she remarked. “ I can’t help 


224 


Behind the White Brick 


myself down below, but I generally have my 
rights respected up here. I should like to know 
what sane godfather or godmother would give one 
the name of ‘Tootsicums * in one’s baptism. They 
are bad enough, I must say; but I never heard 
of any of them calling a person ‘ Tootsicums.’ ” 

“Come, come!” said S. C., chuckling com¬ 
fortably and rubbing his hands. “ Don’t be too 
dignified,—it’s a bad thing. And don’t be too 
fond of flourishing your rights in people’s faces, 
—that’s the worst of all, Miss Midget. Folks 
who make such a fuss about their rights turn 
them into wrongs sometimes.” 

Then he turned suddenly to Jem. 

“You are the little girl from down below,” he 
said. 

“Yes, sir,” answered Jem. “ I’m Jem, and this 
is my friend Flora,—out of the blue book.” 

“ I’m happy to make her acquaintance,” said S. 
C., “and I’m happy to make yours. You are a 
nice child, though a trifle peppery. I’m very 
glad to see you.” 

“I’m very glad indeed to see you, sir,” said 
Jem. “ I wasn’t quite sure-” 

But there she stopped, feeling that it would be 
scarcely polite to tell him that she had begun of 
late years to lose faith in him. 

But S. C. only chuckled more comfortably than 
ever and rubbed his hands again. 





“EH! EH!” HE SAID. “ WHAT • WHAT I WHO’S THIS, TOOTSICUMS?” 







































































































































































V 
































Behind the White Brick 227 

“Ho, ho!” he said. “You know who I am, 
then? ” 

Jem hesitated a moment, wondering whether it 
would not be taking a liberty to mention his 
name without putting “Mr.” before it; then she 
remembered what Baby had called him. 

“ Baby called you ‘ Mr. Claus,’ sir,” she replied; 
“and I have seen pictures of you.” 

“To be sure,” said S. C. “ S. Claus, Esquire, 
of Chimneyland. How do you like me?” 

“ Very much,” answered Jem; “ very much, in¬ 
deed, sir.” 

“ Glad of it! Glad of it! But what was it you 
were going to say you were not quite sure of ? ” 

Jem blushed a little. 

“ I was not quite sure that—that you were true, 
sir. At least I have not been quite sure since I 
have been older.” 

S. C. rubbed the bald part of his head and gave 
a little sigh. 

“ I hope I have not hurt your feelings, sir,” fal¬ 
tered Jem, who was a very kind hearted little 
soul. 

“Well, no,” said S. C. “Not exactly. And it 
is not your fault either. It is natural, I suppose; 
at anyrate, it is the way of the world. People 
lose their belief in a great many things as they 
grow older; but that does not make the things 
not true, thank goodness! and their faith often 


228 


Behind the White Brick 


comes back after a while. But, bless me! ” he 
added, briskly, “ I’m moralizing, and who thanks 
a man for doing that ? Suppose-” 

“Black eyes or blue, sir?” said a tiny voice 
close to them. 

Jem and Flora turned round, and saw it was 
one of the small workers who was asking the 
question. 

“ Whom for?” inquired S. C. 

“ Little girl in the red brick house at the cor¬ 
ner,” said the workwoman ; “ name of Birdie.” 

“ Excuse me a moment,” said S. C. to the chil¬ 
dren, and he turned to the big book and began to 
run his fingers down the pages in a business-like 
manner. “ Ah! here she is! ” he exclaimed at 
last. “ Blue eyes, if you please, Thistle, and 
golden hair. And let it be a big one. She takes 
good care of them.” 

“Yes, sir,” said Thistle; “I am personally ac¬ 
quainted with several dolls in lier family. I go 
to parties in her dolls’ house sometimes when she 
is fast asleep at night, and they all speak very 
highly of her. She is most attentive to them 
when they are ill. In fact, her pet doll is a crip¬ 
ple, with a stiff leg.” 

She ran back to her work and S. C. finished his 
sentence. 

“ Suppose I show you my establishment,” he 
said. “ Come with me.” 


Behind the White Brick 


229 


It really would be quite impossible to describe 
the wonderful things he showed them. Jem’s 
head was quite in a whirl before she had seen 
one-half of them, and even Baby condescended to 
become excited. 

“ There must be a great many children in the 
world, Mr. Claus,” ventured Jem. 

“Yes, yes, millions of ’em; bless ’em,” said S. 
C., growing rosier with delight at the very 
thought. “We never run out of them, that’s one 
comfort. There’s a large and varied assortment 
always on hand. Fresh ones every year, too, so 
that when one grows too old there is a new one 
ready. I have a place like this in every twelfth 
chimney. Now it’s boys, now it’s girls, always 
one or t’other; and there’s no end of playthings 
for them, too, I’m glad to say. For girls, the 
great thing seems to be dolls. Blitzen! what 
comfort they do take in dolls! but the boys are 
for horses and racket.” 

They were standing near a table where a worker 
was just putting the finishing touch to the dress 
of a large wax doll, and just at that moment, to 
Jem’s surprise, she set it on the floor, upon its 
feet, quite coolly. 

“ Thank you,” said the doll, politely. 

Jem quite jumped. 

“You can join the rest now and introduce 
yourself,” said the worker. 


230 


Behind the White Brick 


The doll looked over her shoulder at her train. 

“ It hangs very nicelyshe said. “ I hope it's 
the latest fashion.” 

“ Mine never talked like that,” said Flora. 
* My best one could only say * Mamma,’ and it 
said it very badly, too.” 

“ She was foolish for saying it at all,” remarked 
the doll, haughtily. “We don’t talk and walk 
before ordinary people ; we keep our accomplish¬ 
ments for our own amusement, and for the amuse¬ 
ment of our friends. If you should chance to 
get up in the middle of the night, some time, 
or should run into the room suddenly some day, 
after you have left it, you might hear—but what 
is the use of talking to human beings?” 

“You know a great deal, considering you are 
only just finished,” snapped Baby, who really was 
a Tartar. 

“ I was finished,” retorted the doll. “ I did 
not begin life as a baby l ” very scornfully. 

“ Pooh! ” said Baby. “We improve as we get 
older.” 

“ I hope so, indeed,” answered the doll. 
“There is plenty of room for improvement.” 
And she walked away in great state. 

S. C. looked at Baby and then shook his head. 
“ I shall not have to take very much care of you,” 
he said, absent-mindedly. “ You are able to take 
pretty good care of yourself.” 


Behind the White Brick 


231 


" I hope I am,” said Baby, tossing her head. 

S. C. gave his head another shake. 

" Don’t take too good care of yourself/* he 
said. " That’s a bad thing, too.** 

He showed them the rest of his wonders, and 
then went with them to the door to bid them 
good-bye. 

“ I am sure we are very much obliged to you, 
Mr. Claus/’ said Jem, gratefully. " I shall never 
again think you are not true, sir.** 

S. C. patted her shoulder quite affectionately. 

“ That’s right,” he said. " Believe in things 
just as long as you can, my dear. Good-bye un¬ 
til Christmas Eve. I shall see you then, if you 
don’t see me.” 

He must have taken quite a fancy to Jem, for 
he stood looking at her, and seemed very reluc¬ 
tant to close the door, and even after he had 
closed it, and they had turned away, he opened 
it a little again to call to her. 

"Believe in things as long as you can, my 
dear.” 

"How kind he is!’ exclaimed Jem, full of 
pleasure. 

Baby shrugged her shoulders. 

" Well enough in his way,” she said, " but 
rather inclined to prose and be old-fashioned.” 

Jem looked at her, feeling rather frightened, 
but she said nothing. 


232 Behind the White Brick 

Baby showed very little interest in the next 
room she took them to. 

“ I don’t care about this place,” she said, as she 
threw open the door. “ It has nothing but old 
things in it. It is the Nobody - knows - where 
room.” 

She had scarcely finished speaking before Jem 
made a little spring and picked something up. 

“ Here’s my old strawberry pincushion! ” she 
cried out. And then, with another jump and 
another dash at two or three other things, “ And 
here’s my old fairy-book! And here’s my little 
locket I lost last summer! How did they come 
here ? ” 

“ They went Nobody-knows-where,” said Baby. 

“ And this is it.” 

“ But cannot I have them again?” asked Jem. 

“ No,” answered Baby. “ Things that go to 
Nobody-knows-where stay there.” 

“ Oh ! ” sighed Jem, “ I am so sorry.” 

“ They are only old things,” said Baby. 

“ But I like my old things,” said Jem. “ I love 
them. And there is mother’s needle case. I 
wish I might take that. Her dead little sister 
gave it to her, and she was so sorry when she 
lost it.” 

“ People ought to take better care of their 
things,” remarked Baby. 

Jem would have liked to stay in this room and 


Behind the White Brick 


233 

wander about among her old favorites for a long 
time, but Baby was in a hurry. 

“You’d better come away,” she said. “Sup¬ 
pose I was to have to fall awake and leave 
you?” 

The next place they went into was the most 
wonderful of all. 

“ This is the Wish room,” said Baby. “ Your 
wishes come here—yours and mother’s, and Aunt 
Hetty’s and father’s and mine. When did you 
wish that ? ” 

Each article was placed under a glass shade, 
and labelled with the words and name of the 
wishers. Some of them were beautiful, indeed; 
but the tall shade Baby nodded at when she asked 
her question was truly alarming, and caused Jem 
a dreadful pang of remorse. Underneath it sat 
Aunt Hetty, with her mouth stitched up so that 
she could not speak a word, and beneath the stand 
was a label bearing these words, in large black 
letters— 

“ I wish Aunt Hetty’s mouth was sewed up. 
Jem.” 

“ Oh, dear ! ” cried Jem, in great distress. “ How 
it must have hurt her! How unkind of me to say 
it! I wish I hadn’t wished it. I wish it would 
come undone.” 

She had no sooner said it than her wish was 
gratified. The old label disappeared and a new 


234 


Behind the White Brick 


one showed itself, and there sat Aunt Hetty, look¬ 
ing herself again, and even smiling. 

Jem was grateful beyond measure, but Baby 
seemed to consider her weak minded. 

“ It served her r%ht,” she said. 

“ But when, after looking at the wishes at that 
end of the room, they went to the other end, her 
turn came. In one corner stood a shade with a 
baby under it, and the baby was Miss Baby her¬ 
self, but looking as she very rarely looked; in 
fact, it was the brightest, best tempered baby one 
could imagine.” 

“ I wish I had a better tempered baby. Mother,” 
was written on the label. 

Baby became quite red in the face with anger 
and confusion. 

“ That wasn’t here the last time I came,” she 
said. “ And it is right down mean in mother! ” 

This was more than Jem could bear. 

“ It wasn’t mean,” she said. “ She couldn’t help 
it. You know you are a cross baby—everybody 
says so.” 

Baby turned two shades redder. 

“ Mind your own business,” she retorted. " It 
was mean; and as to that silly little thing being 
better than I am,” turning up her small nose, 
which was quite turned up enough by Nature— 
“ I must say I don’t see anything so very grand 
about her. So, there ! ” 


Behind the White Brick 235 

She scarcely condescended to speak to them 
while they remained in the Wish room, and when 
they left it, and went to the last door in the pas¬ 
sage, she quite scowled at it. 

“ I don’t know whether I shall open it at all/’ 
she said. 

“ Why not?” asked Flora. “You might as 
well.” 

“ It is the Lost pin room,” she said. “ I hate pins.” 

She threw the door open with a bang, and then 
stood and shook her little fist viciously. The 
room was full of pins, stacked solidly together. 
There were hundreds of them—thousands—mill¬ 
ions, it seemed. 

“ I’m glad they are lost! ” she said. “ I wish 
there were more of them there.” 

“ I didn’t know there were so many pins in the 
world,” said Jem. 

“ Pooh ! ” said Baby. “ Those are only the lost 
ones that have belonged to our family.” 

After this they went back to Flora’s room and 
sat down, while Flora told Jem the rest of her 
story. 

“ Oh! ” sighed Jem, when she came to the end. 
“ How delightful it is to be here! Can I never 
come again ? ” 

“ In one way you can,” said Flora. “ When 
you want to come, just sit down and be as quiet 
as possible, and shut your eyes and think very 


236 Behind the White Brick c- 

• ‘ 0 -* 

hard about it. You can see everything ycni’have 
seen to-day, if you try.” 

“ Then I shall be sure to try,” Jem answered. 

She was going to ask some other question, but 
Baby stopped her. 

“ Oh! I’m falling awake,” she whimpered, cross¬ 
ly, rubbing her eyes. “ Fm falling awake again.” 

And then, suddenly, a very strange feeling came 
over Jem. Flora and the pretty room seemed to 
fade away, and, without being able to account for 
it at all, she found herself sitting on her little stool 
again, with a beautiful scarlet and gold book on 
her knee, and her mother standing by laughing at 
her amazed face. As to Miss Baby, she was cry¬ 
ing as hard as she could in her crib. 

“Mother!” Jem cried out, “have you really 
come home so early as this, and—and,” rubbing 
her eyes in great amazement, “ how did I come 
down ? ” 

“ Don’t I look as if I was real ? ” said her mother, 
laughing and kissing her. “ And doesn’t your 
present look real ? I don’t know how you came 
down, I’m sure. Where have you been ? ” 

Jem shook her head very mysteriously. She 
saw that her mother fancied she had been asleep, 
but she herself knew better. 

“ I know you wouldn’t believe it was true if I 
told you,” she said ; “ I have been 

Behind the White Brick.” 













































































































































































